A Clash of Kings: Knees Falling
by Perfidious Albion
Summary: Five kings stake their claims to power, but not only kings bleed in kings' wars. It is the men and women behind them, most of humbler blood, who will decide the course of fate. A seagull takes a different path after a day's hunting in the Narrow Sea, and so one dies who might have lived. From that seed Westeros changes beyond imagination. 'A Clash of Kings' as it could have been.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

I'm writing this story in the format of _A Clash of Kings_. I'm not adding lots of new character PoVs or doing it in history-book format or any such thing. As best I can, I am writing it as I think Martin would have written it if he had chosen the plot to follow this path. _A Clash of Kings: Knees Falling_ isn't meant to be a spin-off of _A Clash of Kings,_ though of course it is. It is meant to be _A Clash of Kings_ as it could have been.

However, I'm not coming up with the plot like that. I'm coming up with the plot by considering the logical effects that my point of divergence would have on Martin's world and imagining, from what I know of Martin's characters, what I think they would do in the situation they're presented with. This is a classic 'for want of a nail' story. Something I dislike about a lot of fanfiction is that the butterfly effect is used for the author's convenience. Often, in my experience, fanfiction authors use butterflies as an excuse to make things easier for the characters they like: for example, in the many, many fanfiction stories which seem to have been written purely to screw over the Lannisters, something changes about Stannis's behaviour and then suddenly Robb does better in his war against the Lannisters for no good reason, or vice versa. I'm trying to avoid that here. (Which is not to say that the Lannisters are going to win, of course, or that they're going to be defeated; I'm not going to spoil that here. That was just an example.)

Some of the text—especially in the early chapters, where _Knees Falling_ has not yet diverged greatly from _A Song of Ice and Fire_ canon—has been copied word-for-word from Martin's text. If an entire chapter is of this nature, or a very large section of text, then I won't write it out again; I'll just tell you. I like being honest on such things. As time goes on, and _Knees Falling_ diverges further from canon's events, the amount of text that's copied decreases greatly. This is because I don't think it's a productive use of anybody's time for me to rewrite the same events you already know about in a slightly different manner. **The rights to this entire work belong to George R. R. Martin** —the directly copied text, yes, obviously, but also the text which I wrote but which is still based in Martin's world. This work is being created purely for enjoyment, not for any financial gain.

Because the divergences from canon start off quite small and then grow much greater over time, the early chapters are generally similar to canon. Readers who have little patience for this are advised to read this initial Cressen chapter (to find out what the difference from canon is) and then skip to Chapter 7. By that time, the divergences have grown larger and more noticeable.

I would like to emphasise that MY NARRATOR IS NOT OMNISCIENT and CHARACTERS' INFORMATION IS IMPERFECT. Don't take everything a character believes or concludes as gospel truth, even if they're a viewpoint character. Otherwise my writing will seem to have _loads_ of contradictions. Don't worry, this story isn't going to be one of _those_ where you're unsure whether anything is real—I have no interest in such—but characters do sometimes misjudge things, especially when in stressful situations. Crucially, news takes a finite amount of time to travel, and I've put in a reasonable amount of effort working out travel times and the times it takes for news to travel, because there are things, e.g. whether an army will arrive at a place in time, which matter very much, given the deterministic way I'm working out the plot. This imperfection matters. Sometimes, information and ideas and predictions which aren't actually true can turn out to be important to the plot if a character makes decisions based on them.

Let me note that the chapters are not necessarily in chronological order. Each Tyrion chapter takes place after the previous Tyrion chapter, each Arya chapter takes place after the previous Arya chapter, _et cetera_ , but a Sansa chapter next to a Davos chapter might take place before or after it chronologically (or overlapping, if one of the chapters goes on for a much longer time in-universe than the other; some of my chapters last for a few hours, whereas others last for days, weeks or even months).

NB: Kudos to the wonderful people who composed 'ASOIAF Timeline – Vandal Proof'. Thank you, in case any of them are reading this. Your excellent timeline of events in ASOIAF has been invaluable; it's an excellent resource for _A Song of Ice and Fire_ fanfiction authors.

I hope you enjoy it!

Without further ado:

* * *

A CLASH OF KINGS: KNEES FALLING

* * *

 **CRESSEN**

 _[Until this point, text from the canonical prologue to_ A Clash of Kings _, from the point of view of Cressen, can be inserted here]_

When he woke it was full dark, his bedchamber was black, and every joint in his body ached. Cressen pushed himself up, his head throbbing. Clutching for his cane, he rose unsteady to his feet. _So late_ , he thought. _They did not summon me._ He was always summoned for feasts, seated near the salt, close to Lord Stannis. His lord's face swam up before him, not the man he was but the boy he had been, standing cold in the shadows while the sun shone on his elder brother. Whatever he did, Robert had done first, and better. Poor boy… he must hurry, for _his_ sake.

The maester found the crystals where he had left them, and scooped them off the parchment. Cressen owned no hollow rings, such as the poisoners of Lys were said to favour, but a myriad of pockets great and small were sewn inside the loose sleeves of his robe. He secreted the strangler seeds in one of them, threw open his door, and called, "Pylos? Where are you?" When he heard no reply, he called again, louder. "Pylos, I need help." Still there came no answer. That was queer; the young maester had his cell only a half-turn down the stair, within easy earshot.

In the end, Cressen had to shout for the servants. "Make haste," he told them. "I have slept too long. They will be feasting by now… drinking… I should have been woken." What had happened to Maester Pylos? Truly, he did not understand.

Again he had to cross the long gallery. A night wind whispered through the great windows, sharp with the smell of the sea. Torches flickered along the walls of Dragonstone, and in the camp beyond, he could see hundreds of cookfires burning, as if a field of stars had fallen to the earth. Above, the comet blazed red and malevolent. _I am too old and wise to fear such things_ , the maester told himself.

The doors to the Great Hall were set in the mouth of a stone dragon. He told the servants to leave him outside. It would be better to enter alone; he must not appear feeble. Leaning heavily on his cane, Cressen climbed the last few steps and hobbled beneath the gateway teeth. A pair of guardsmen opened the heavy red doors before him, unleashing a sudden blast of noise and light. Cressen stepped down into the dragon's maw.

Over the clatter of knife and plate and the low mutter of table talk, he heard Patchface singing, "… _dance, my lord, dance my lord_ ," to the accompaniment of jangling cowbells. The same dreadful song he'd sung this morning. " _The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay my lord, stay my lord._ " The lower tables were crowded with knights, archers, and sellsword captains, tearing apart loaves of black bread to soak in their fish stew. Here there was no loud laughter, no raucous shouting such as marred the dignity of other men's feasts; Lord Stannis did not permit such.

Cressen made his way toward the raised platform where the lords sat with the king. He had to step wide around Patchface. Dancing, his bells ringing, the fool neither saw nor heard his approach. As he hopped from one leg to the other, Patchface lurched into Cressen, knocking his cane out from under him. They went crashing down together amidst the rushes in a tangle of arms and legs, while a sudden gale of laughter went up around them. No doubt it was a comical sight.

Patchface sprawled half on top of him, motley fool's face pressed close to his own. He had lost his tin helm with its antlers and bells. "Under the sea, you fall _up_ ," he declared. "I know, I know, oh, oh, oh." Giggling, the fool rolled off, bounded to his feet, and did a little dance.

Trying to make the best of it, the maester smiled feebly and struggled to rise, but his hip was in such pain that for a moment he was half afraid that he had broken it all over again. He felt strong hands grasp him under the arms and lift him back to his feet. "Thank you, ser," he murmured, turning to see which knight had come to his aid…

"Maester," said Lady Melisandre, her deep voice flavoured with the music of the Jade Sea. "You ought take more care." As ever, she wore red head to heel, a long loose gown of flowing silk as bright as fire, with dagged sleeves and deep slashes in the bodice that showed glimpses of a darker blood red fabric beneath. Around her throat was a red gold choker tighter than any maester's chain, ornamented with a single great ruby. Her hair was not the orange or strawberry colour of common red-haired men, but a deep burnished copper that shone in the light of the torches. Even her eyes were red… but her skin was smooth and white, unblemished, pale as cream. Slender she was, graceful, taller than most knights, with full breasts and narrow waist and a heart-shaped face. Men's eyes that once found her did not quickly look away, not even a maester's eyes. Many called her beautiful. She was not beautiful. She was red, and terrible and red.

"I… thank you, my lady." Cressen's fear whispered to him. _She knows what the comet portends. She is wiser than you, old man._

"A man your age must look to where he steps," Melisandre said courteously. "The night is dark and full of terrors."

He knew the phrase, some prayer of her faith. _It makes no matter, I have a faith of my own._ "Only children fear the dark," he told her. Yet even as he said the words, he heard Patchface take up his song again. " _The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord._ "

"Now here is a riddle," Melisandre said. "A clever fool and a foolish wise man." Bending, she picked up Patchface's helm from where it had fallen and set it on Cressen's head. The cowbells rang softly as the tin bucket slid down over his ears. "A crown to match your chain, lord maester," she announced. All around them, men were laughing.

Cressen pressed his lips together and fought to still his rage. She thought he was feeble and helpless, but she would learn otherwise before the night was done. Old he might be, yet he was still a maester of the Citadel. "I need no crown but truth," he told her, removing the fool's helm from his head.

"There are truths in this world that are not taught at Oldtown." Melisandre turned away from him in a swirl of red silk and made her way back to the high table, where King Stannis and his queen were seated. Cressen handed the antlered tin bucket back to Patchface, and made to follow.

Maester Pylos sat in his place.

The old man could only stop and stare. "Maester Pylos," he said at last. "You… you did not wake me."

"His Grace commanded me to let you rest." Pylos had at least the grace to blush. "He told me you were not needed here."

Cressen looked over the knights and captains and lords sitting silent. Lord Celtigar, aged and sour, wore a mantle patterned with red crabs picked out in garnets. Handsome Lord Velaryon chose sea green silk, the white gold seahorse at his throat matching his long fair hair. Lord Bar Emmon, that plump boy of fourteen, was swathed in purple velvet trimmed with white seal, Ser Axell Florent remained homely even in russet and fox fur, pious Lord Sunglass wore moonstones at throat and wrist and finger, and the Lysene captain Salladhor Saan was a sunburst of scarlet satin, gold, and jewels. Only Ser Davos dressed simply, in brown doublet and green wool mantle, and only Ser Davos met his gaze, with pity in his eyes.

"You are too ill and too confused to be of use to me, old man." It sounded so like Lord Stannis's voice, but it could not be, it could not. "Pylos will counsel me henceforth. Already he works with the ravens, since you can no longer climb to the rookery. I will not have you kill yourself in my service.

Maester Cressen blinked. _Stannis, my lord, my sad sullen boy, son I never had, you must not do this, don't you know how I have cared for you, lived for you, loved you despite all? Yes, loved you, better than Robert even, or Renly, for you were the one unloved, the one who needed me most._ Yet all he said was, "As you command, my lord, but… but I am hungry. Might I not have a place at your table?" _At your side, I belong at your side…_

Ser Davos rose from the bench. "I should be honoured if the maester would sit here beside me, Your Grace."

"As you will." Lord Stannis turned away to say something to Melisandre, who had seated herself at his right hand, in the place of high honour. Lady Selyse was on his left, flashing a smile as bright and brittle as her jewels.

 _Too far_ , Cressen thought dully, looking at where Ser Davos was seated. Half of the lords bannermen were between the smuggler and the high table. _I must be closer if I am to get the strangler into her cup, yet how?_

Patchface was capering about as the maester made his slow way around the table to Davos Seaworth. "Here we eat fish," the fool declared happily, waving a cod about like a sceptre. "Under the sea, the fish eat us. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh."

Ser Davos moved aside to make room on the bench. "We all should be in motley tonight," he said gloomily as Cressen seated himself, "for this is fool's business we're about. The red woman has seen victory in her flames, so Stannis means to press his claim, no matter what the numbers. Before she's done we're all like to see what Patchface saw, I fear—the bottom of the sea."

Cressen slid his hands up into his sleeves as if for warmth. His fingers found the hard lumps the crystals made in the wool. "Lord Stannis."

Stannis turned from the red woman, but it was Lady Selyse who replied. " _King_ Stannis. You forget yourself, maester."

"He is old, his mind wanders," the king told her gruffly. "What is it, Cressen? Speak your mind."

"As you intend to sail, it is vital that you make common cause with Lord Stark and Lady Arryn…"

"I make common cause with no one," Stannis Baratheon said.

"No more than light makes common cause with darkness." Lady Selyse took his hand.

Stannis nodded. "The Starks seek to steal half my kingdom, even as the Lannisters have stolen my throne and my own sweet brother the swords and service and strongholds that are mine by rights. They are all usurpers, and they are all my enemies."

 _I have lost him_ , Cressen thought, despairing. If only he could somehow approach Melisandre unseen… he needed but an instant's access to her cup. "You are the rightful heir to your brother Robert, the true Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men," he said desperately, "but even so, you cannot hope to triumph without allies."

"He has an ally," Lady Selyse said. "R'hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow."

"Gods make uncertain allies at best," the old man insisted, "and _that_ one has no power here."

"You think not?" The ruby at Melisandre's throat caught the light as she turned her head, and for an instant it seemed to glow bright as the comet. "If you will speak such folly, maester, you ought to wear your crown again."

"Yes," Lady Selyse agreed. "Patch's helm. It suits you well, old man. Put it ona gain, I command you."

"Under the sea, no one wears hats," Patchface said. "I know, I know, oh, oh, oh."

Lord Stannis's eyes were shadowed beneath his heavy brow, his mouth tight as his jaw worked silently. He always ground his teeth when he was angry. "Fool," he growled at last, "my lady wife commands. Give Cressen your helm."

 _No_ , the old maester thought, _this is not you, not your way, you were always just, always hard yet never cruel, never, you did not understand mockery, no more than you understood laughter._

Patchface danced closer, his cowbells ringing, but for one moment they were drowned out. There was a sudden childlike cry, a high whine, loud and cheerful. In a crazed instant Cressen thought he had heard Stannis, or Renly, or even Robert, one of the children he had raised; and perhaps they could explain to Stannis, make him see, for Cressen could not accept that one of the sons he had never had could raise a hand against the other. Then he saw the shape of a great grey bird sweeping past the window, far away, its wings extended like a song on the air. It had been the cry of a bird that, it so happened, had flown near the island as it stopped fishing for the day and came to rest, nothing more. _Fool_ , he told himself, _old man, weak, useless, fool._

And yet… his lord was not wrong that he was an old man, and his mind wandered. To the bird, alike from a distance to the goshawk Lord Stannis had reared as a child, though it was surely just a seagull. And to Lord Stannis, the boy who had fed and shown kindness to that weak bird with a broken wing, even as he showed kindness to Patchface who approached now still singing his dreadful song, for such an unamusing fool had nowhere else to go. And thus to the difference between the lord he had known and the lord the red woman was making.

There was a sudden burden on his brow. Cressen bowed his head beneath the weight. His bells clanged. In his depth of thought he had not paid attention to the fool coming near him. He had not even lifted his knife from his side to take a bite.

"Perhaps he ought sing his counsel henceforth," Lady Selyse said.

"You go too far, woman," Lord Stannis said. "He is an old man, and he's served me well."

 _And I will serve you to the last, my sweet lord, my poor lonely son_ , Cressen thought, for suddenly he saw the way. Ser Davos's cup was before him, still half-full of sour red. He found a hard flake of crystal in his sleeve, held it tight between thumb and forefinger as he reached for the cup. _Smooth motions, deft, I must not fumble now_ , he prayed, and the gods were kind. In the blink of an eye, his fingers were empty. His hands had not been so steady for years, nor half so fluid. Davos saw, but no one else, he was certain. Cup in hand, he rose to his feet. "Mayhaps I have been a fool. Lady Melisandre, will you share a cup of wine with me? A cup in honour of your god, your Lord of Light? A cup to toast his power?"

The red woman studied him. "If you wish."

He could feel them all watching him. Davos clutched at him as he left the bench, catching his sleeve with the fingers that Lord Stannis had shortened. "What are you doing?" he whispered.

"A thing that must be done," Maester Cressen answered, "for the sake of the realm, and the soul of my lord." He shook off Davos's hand, spilling a drop of wine on the rushes.

She met him beneath the high table with every man's eyes upon them. But Cressen saw only her. Red silk, red eyes, the ruby red at her throat, red lips curled in a faint smile as she put her hand atop his own, around the cup. Her skin felt hot, feverish. "It is not too late to spill the wine, maester."

"No," he whispered hoarsely. "No."

"As you will." Melisandre of Asshai took the cup from his hands, and drank long and deep. There was only half a swallow of wine remaining when she offered it back to him. "And now you."

His hands were shaking, but he made himself be strong. A maester of the Citadel must not be afraid. The wine was sour on his tongue. He let the empty cup drop from his fingers to shatter on the floor. "He _does_ have power here, my lord," the woman said. "And fire cleanses." At her throat, the ruby shimmered redly.

Cressen tried to reply, but his words caught in his throat. His cough became a terrible thin whistle as he strained to suck in air. Iron fingers tightened around his neck. As he fell to his knees, knowing the hour of his death, trying to deny her god, deny her power, deny his failure, he felt hard metal at his side… and knew.

He curled his fingers. It was an instant's work to shift his fall so that her legs were caught by it. As the red woman tumbled to the ground, bright eyes widening, his hand left his side with the last of his strength. The knife, nothing grander than any man's eating dagger, sank in, and suddenly there was another way she was red.

Lord Stannis's hall screamed with commotion. Half the lords and knights and captains stood; half of those were rushing towards him; but none of them would arrive in time. He met his lord's eyes, saw the anger there, and was sorry that he could not soothe it, but he did not feel he had done ill. Others must care for him now.

"For you," Cressen whispered to the son he never had, and died.


	2. Chapter 2

**DAVOS**

The port was crowded as Ser Davos Seaworth had ever known it. Every dock teemed with sailors loading provisions, and every inn was packed with soldiers dicing or drinking or looking for a whore… a vain search, since Stannis permitted none on his island. Ships lined the strand; war galleys and fishing vessels, stout carracks and fat-bottomed cogs. The best berths had been taken by the largest vessels; Stannis's flagship _Fury_ rocking between _Lord Steffon_ and _Stag of the Sea_ , Lord Velaryon's silver-hulled _Pride of Driftmark_ and her three sisters, Lord Celtigar's ornate _Red Claw_ , the ponderous _Swordfish_ with her long iron prow. Out to sea at anchor rode Salladhor Saan's great _Valyrian_ amongst the striped hulls of two dozen smaller Lysene galleys.

A weathered little inn sat on the end of the stone pier where _Black Betha_ , _Wraith_ , and _Lady Marya_ shared mooring space with a half-dozen other galleys of one hundred oars or less. Davos had a thirst. He took his leave of his sons and turned his steps towards the inn. Out front squatted a waist-high gargoyle, so eroded by rain and salt that his features were all but obliterated. He and Davos were old friends, though. He gave a pat to the stone head as he went in. "Luck," he murmured.

Across the noisy common room, Salladhor Saan sat eating grapes from a wooden bowl. When he spied Davos, he beckoned him closer. "Ser knight, come sit with me. Eat a grape. Eat two. They are marvellously sweet." The Lyseni was a sleek, smiling man whose flamboyance was a byword on both sides of the Narrow Sea. Today he wore flashing cloth-of-silver, with dagged sleeves so long the edges of them pooled on the floor. His buttons were carved jade monkeys, and atop his wispy white curls perched a jaunty green cap decorated with a fan of peacock feathers.

Davos threaded his way through the tables to a chair. In the days before his knighthood, he had often bought cargoes from Salladhor Saan. The Lyseni was a smuggler himself, as well as a trader, a banker, a notorious pirate, and the self-styled Prince of the Narrow Sea. _When a pirate grows rich enough, they make him a prince._ It had been Davos who had made the journey to Lys to recruit the old rogue to Lord Stannis's cause.

"Did you hear the word about Ser Axell Florent, my lord?" he asked.

"I did. Seven-hundred gold dragons to the Conqueror's Sept and suddenly a heretic cultist of a red demon is a man of good standing in the true faith." He seemed utterly unconcerned that someone might overhear him, eating his grapes and dribbling the seeds out onto his lip, flicking them off with a finger.

Davos would not speak in defence of Ser Axell. Uncle to Lady Selyse— _no, Queen Selyse, I must remember that_ —and long-serving castellan of Dragonstone he may be, but he was not a good man. A thick, heavyset man with protruding ears covered with hair, he had risen high on Dragonstone as the highest partisan of the queen's men, that group of lords and knights who had deserted the faith of their fathers to bow to the red demon worshipped by Melisandre of Asshai, the so-called Lord of Light. Now that Melisandre and the king's hope in what she had to offer were as dead as each other, the king had lost interest in the Lord of Light and the queen's men had fallen from his favour. Septon Barre, Keeper of the Conqueror's Sept and highest of the Faith of the Seven in Lord Stannis's dominions, had mercilessly leveraged their desertion to gain new funds for the sept's coffers in return for restoring them to good standing in the Faith. It was said Lady Selyse still worshipped the Lord of Light, but few of her former followers had been so zealous. Septon Barre's embrace of her uncle, and the highborn-ransom-sized gift that preceded it, were the talk of the island for a reason; it meant that the religious struggle that had begun when Melisandre had first gained Lord Stannis's ear was drawing to a close.

"My _Bird of a Thousand Colours_ came in yesterday, good ser. She is not a warship, no, but a trader, and she paid a call on King's Landing. Are you sure you will not have a grape? Children go hungry in the city, it is said." He dangled the grapes before Davos and smiled.

"It's ale I need, and news."

"The men of Westeros are ever rushing," complained Salladhor Saan. What good is this, I ask you? He who hurries through life hurries to his grave." He belched. "The Lord of Casterly Rock has sent his dwarf to see to King's Landing. Perhaps he hopes tht his ugly face will frighten off attackers, eh? Or that we will laugh ourselves dead when the Imp capers on the battlements, who can say? The dwarf has chased off the lout who ruled the gold cloaks and put in his place a knight with an iron hand." He plucked a grape, and squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger until the skin burst. Juice ran down between his fingers.

A serving girl pushed her way through, swatting at the hands that groped her as she passed. Davos ordered a tankard of ale, turned back to Saan, and said, "How well is the city defended?"

The other shrugged. "The walls are high and strong, but who will man them? They are building scorpions and spitfires, oh yes, but the men in the golden cloaks are too few and too green, and there are no others. A swift strike, like a hawk plummetting at a hare, and the great city will be ours. Grant us wind to fill our sails, and your king could sit upon his Iron Throne by evenfall on the morrow. We could dress the dwarf in motley and prick his little cheeks with the points of our spears to make him dance for us, and mayhaps your goodly king would make me a gift of the beautiful Queen Cersei to warm my bed for a night. I have been too long away from my wives, and all in his service."

"Pirate," said Davos. "You have no wives, only concubines, and you have been well paid for every day and every ship."

"Only in promises," said Salladhor Saan mournfully. "Good ser, it is gold I crave, not words on papers." He popped a grape into his mouth.

"You'll have your gold when we take the treasury in King's Landing. No man in the Seven Kingdoms is more honourable than Stannis Baratheon. He will keep his word." Even as Davos spoke, he thought, _This world is twisted beyond hope, when lowborn smugglers must vouch for the honour of kings._

"So he has said and said. And so I say, let us do this thing. Even these grapes could be no more ripe than that city, my old friend."

The serving girl returned with his ale. Davos gave her a copper. "Might be we could take King's Landing, as you say," he said as he lifted the tankard, "but how long would we hold it? Tywin Lannister is known to be at Harrenhal with a great host, and Lord Renly…"

"Ah, yes, the young brother," said Salladhor Saan. "That part is not so good, my friend. King Renly bestirs himself. No, here he is _Lord_ Renly, my pardons. So many kings, my tongue grows weary of the word. The brother Renly has left Highgarden with his fair young queen, his flowered lords and shining knights, and a mighty host of foot. He marches up your road of roses toward the very same great city we were speaking of."

"He takes his _bride_?"

The other shrugged. "He did not tell me why. Perhaps he is loath to part with the warm burrow between her thighs, even for a night. Or perhaps he is that certain of his victory."

"The king must be told."

"I have attended to it, good ser. Though His Grace frowns so whenever he does see me that I tremble to come before him. Do you think he would like me better if I wore a hair shirt and never smiled? Well, I will not do it. I am an honest man, he must suffer me in silk and samite. Or else I shall take my ships where I am better loved. With his great bounty this Septon Barre has built no grand new manses. He is of the breed of men that love gold not to use it but for the mere joy of having it, methinks."

The sudden shift in subject left Davos uneasy. Nevertheless, he said, "You tell of the septon too poorly. He's of the sort that give food to beggar children." _As I was_ , he thought, though he had his pride and would never tell it aloud to such a man as this. "He hasn't spent his gold because he knows he will need it. There are always fields burnt, children orphaned, towns and villages sacked in wars. Who but the Faith will lift a finger for them? It profits the Faith nothing to stir the smallfolk's wrath against Ser Axell Florent, and profits it much to have the money it needs for the war."

"You speak like a holy man," Saan said with a laugh.

That startled Davos. "I'm no septon. But yes, when it's called for I say a word or light a candle to one of the true gods, and I cannot deny I'm glad this whole sorry affair with the red woman and her foreign god is ending."

"I will remember." Salladhor Saan got to his feet. "My pardons. These grapes have given me a hunger, and dinner awaits on my _Valyrian_. Minced lamb with pepper and roasted gull stuffed with mushrooms and fennel and onion. Soon we shall eat together in King's Landing, yes? In the Red Keep we shall feast, while the dwarf sings us a jolly tune. When you speak to King Stannis, mention if you would that he will owe me another thirty thousand dragons come the black of the moon." The Lyseni clapped Davos on the back, and swaggered from the inn as if he owned it.

Davos finished his ale, pushed away the tankard, and left the inn. On the way out he patted the gargoyle on the head and muttered, "Luck." They would all need it.

It was well after dark when Devan came down to _Black Betha_ , leading a snow white palfrey. "My lord father," he annnounced, "His Grace commands you to attend him in the Chamber of the Painted Table. You are to ride the horse and come at once."

It was good to see Devan looking so splendid in his squire's raiment, but the summons made Davos uneasy. _Will he bid us sail?_ he wondered. Salladhor Saan was not the only captain who felt that King's Landing was ripe for an attack, but a smuggler must learn patience. _We have no hope of victory. I said as much to Maester Cressen, the day I returned to Dragonstone, and nothing has changed. We are too few, the foes too many. If we dip our oars, we die._ Nonetheless, he climbed onto the horse.

Stannis sat at his Painted Table with Maester Pylos at his shoulder, an untidy pile of papers before them. "Ser," the king said when Davos entered, "come have a look at this letter."

Obediently, he selected a paper at random. "It looks handsome enough, Your Grace, but I fear I cannot read the words." Davos could decipher maps and charts as well as any, but letters and other writings were beyond his powers. _But my Devan has learnt his letters, and young Steffon and Stannis as well._

"I'd forgotten." A furrow of irritation showed between the king's brows. "Pylos, read it to him."

"Your Grace." The maester took up one of the parchments and cleared his throat. " _All men know me for the trueborn son of Steffon Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End, by his lady wife Cassana of House Estermont. I declare upon the honour of my House that my beloved brother Robert, our late king, left no trueborn issue of his body, the boy Joffrey, the boy Tommen, and the girl Myrcella being abominations born of incest between Cersei Lannister and her brother Jaime the Kingslayer. By right of birth and blood, I do this day lay claim to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Let all true men declare their loyalty. Done in the sight of gods and men, under the sign and seal of Stannis of House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms._ " The parchment rustled softly as Pylos laid it down.

"Make it _Ser_ Jaime the Kingslayer henceforth," Stannis said, frowning. "Whatever else the man may be, he remains a knight. I don't know that we ought to call Robert my _beloved_ brother either. He loved me no more than he had to, nor I him."

"A harmless courtesy, Your Grace," Pylos said.

"A lie. Take it out." Stannis turned to Davos. "The maester tells me that we have one hundred seventeen ravens on hand. I mean to use them all. One hundred seventeen ravens will carry one hundred seventeen copies of my letter to every corner of the realm, from the Arbour to the Wall. Perhaps a hundred will win through against storm and hawk and arrow. If so, a hundred maesters will read my words to as many lords in as many solars and bedchambers… and then the letters will like as not be consigned to the fire, and lips pledged to silence. These great lords love Joffrey, or Renly, or Robb Stark. I am their rightful king, but they will deny me if they can. So I have need of you."

"I am yours to command, my king. As ever."

Stannis nodded. "I mean for you to sail _Black Betha_ north, to Gulltown, the Fingers, the Three Sisters, even White Harbour. Your son Dale will go south in the _Wraith_ , past Cape Wrath and the Broken Arm, all along the coast of Dorne as far as the Arbour. Each of you will carry a chest of letters, and you will deliver one to every port and holdfast and fishing village. Nail them to the doors of septs and inns for every man to read who can."

Davos said, "That will be few enough."

"Ser Davos speaks truly, Your Grace," said Maester Pylos. "It would be better to have the letters read aloud."

"Better, but more dangerous," said Stannis. "These words will not be kindly received."

"Give me knights to do the reading," Davos said. "That will carry more weight than anything I might say."

Stannis seemed well satisfied with that. "I can give you such men, yes. I have a hundred knights who would sooner read than fight. Be open where you can and stealthy where you must. Use every smuggler's trick you know, the black sails, the hidden coves, whatever it requires. If you run short of letters, capture a few septons and set them to copying out more. I mean to use your second son as well. He will take _Lady Marya_ across the Narrow Sea, to Braavos and the other Free Cities, to deliver other letters to the men who rule there. The world will know of my claim, and of Cersei's infamy."

 _You can tell them_ , Davos thought, _but will they believe?_ He glanced thoughtfully at Maester Pylos. The king caught the look. "Maester, perhaps you ought get to your writing. We will need a great many letters, and soon."

"As you will." Pylos bowed, and took his leave.

The king waited until he was gone before he said, "What is it you would not say in the presence of my maester, Davos?"

"My liege, Pylos is pleasant enough, but I cannot see the chain about his neck without mourning for Maester Cressen."

"Is it his fault the old man died?" Stannis glanced into the fire. "That was his own doing, and a great nuisance it has been too. Melisandre promised me much; if she delivered but a quarter of it, she would have been a useful tool indeed. And do you know that self-righteous old fool Barre and his pawn Sunglass are telling everyone who will listen that he was a martyr for the Faith, sacrificing himself to destroy an evil witch who was seducing me, while they themselves fleece my uncle for gold? The gall of it!"

Davos did. He judged it unwise to mention that he agreed. Melisandre may not have seduced the king to her bed, but she had been trying to seduce him to her way of thinking. He did not think Lord Stannis would have tolerated such mockery of Maester Cressen, who had been a trusted companion to him, before the red woman had sunk her claws into him, and he was very glad indeed that she was gone.

"Nevertheless," Stannis said, "what is done cannot be undone. For Cressen's religious passion, I am bereft of him and my red priestess alike. And Pylos serves me ably."

"Pylos is the least of it. The letter… what did your lords make of it, I wonder?"

Stannis snorted. "Celtigar pronounced it admirable. If I showed him the contents of my privy, he would declare that admirable as well. The others bobbed their heads up and down like a flock of geese, all but Velaryon, who said that steel would decide the matter, not words on parchment. As if I had never suspected. The Others take my lords, I'll hear your views."

"Your words were blunt and strong."

"And true."

"And true. Yet you have no proof. Of this incest. No more than you did a year ago."

"There's proof of a sorts at Storm's End. Robert's bastard. The one he fathered on my wedding night, in the very bed they'd made up for me and my bride. Delena was a Florent, and a maiden when he took her, so Robert acknowledged the babe. Edric Storm, they call him. He is said to be the very image of my brother. If men were to see him, and then look again at Joffrey and Tommen, they could not help but wonder, I would think."

"Yet how are men to see him, if he is at Storm's End?"

Stannis drummed his fingers on the Painted Table. "It is a difficulty. One of many." He raised his eyes. "You have more to say about the letter. Well, get on with it. I did not make you a knight so you could learn to mouth empty courtesies. I have my lords for that. Say what you would say, Davos."

Davos bowed his head. "It's not about the letter, Your Grace. It's about the war."

"I will not leap at King's Landing. I would take it, I have no doubt of that; but that would do me more harm than good. If I did so, the abominations born of incest would be sent to the silent sisters and the Wall, so Lord Tywin would have no grandchildren to place upon the throne his daughter's stolen. For that he would hate me as much as he did Aerys Targaryen, who deprived him of a similar ambition, and he would surely support Renly against me. I would destroy one usurper only to the reward of another. No. As long as Renly opposes my claim, he is beloved of the lords and commons as I never have been, so I needs must destroy him before moving against Joffrey."

"I do not argue that," Davos said. "It's about Lords Tully and Stark and Lady Arryn. Will you not—"

"I will."

Davos was too stunned to speak.

"Do you think I would so oft ask your advice if I were minded never to heed it? Stark would steal half my kingdom and his grandsire Tully would aid him; one who would be king will not toss aside his crown, so he is my certain enemy; but Lady Arryn may yet be persuaded to my cause. I do not have great hope of it, but it would be negligent were I not to try. I trusted in Maester Cressen's wisdom and your wiles, and they availed me nothing; I went to the stormlords a beggar and they laughed at me. But to Lady Arryn I will not beg. She has a son of the noblest blood, fit to wed a princess, and I have a daughter. Many a woman would leap at the chance of such a match, for her son to be king."

Davos found his voice. "I am glad."

"You should be," said Stannis. "'Twas good counsel. I expect Lady Arryn not to take it—if she were wise she would already have marched to war against Tywin Lannister, for if he triumphs he will find no mercy in his heart for her—but an appeal to her ambition may yet succeed where her honour and her wisdom failed. It is this that I would discuss. On the morrow I will call my lords bannermen to this chamber, and I will send a delegation by ship to Gulltown and thence to the Eyrie."

Davos had not anticipated such a triumph; he did not know what to say. "Who is fit for such a task?"

"I had little choice," answered Stannis. "Bar Emmon is a boy. Sunglass has been the ally of Barre; he is unworthy of my trust. My good-uncle I would rather retain here; he has served me long and well, and besides they would disdain me for that most of his House stands against me. All others here the haughty Valelords would judge to be too lowborn, so I have little choice but to send Celtigar and Velaryon. Their Houses are no longer as rich or as mighty as they were in olden days, but they are old and of ancient pedigree, boasting many marriages with House Targaryen. At the head of the delegation I will send my wife."

 _Lady Selyse? She is being sent to exile?_ Davos could scarcely believe his ears.

"I'd be a fool to place Velaryon above Celtigar, or Celtigar above Velaryon," Stannis explained, "and it would be a sign of seriousness as regards my intentions for my daughter. I expect Lady Arryn to be a fool, but we shall see."


	3. Chapter 3

**CATELYN**

From time to time, King Renly would feed Margaery some choice morsel off the point of his dagger, or lean over to plant the lightest of kisses on her cheek, but it was Ser Loras who shared most of his jests and confidences. The king enjoyed his food and drink, that was plain to see, yet he seemed neither glutton nor drunkard. He laughed often, and well, and spoke amiably to highborn lords and lowly serving wenches alike.

Some of his guests were less moderate. They drank too much and boasted too loudly, to her mind. Lord Willum's sons Josua and Elyas disputed heatedly about who would be first over the walls of King's Landing. Lord Varner dandled a serving girl on his lap, nuzzling at her neck while one hand went exploring down her bodice. Guyard the Green, who fancied himself a singer, diddled a harp and gave them a verse about tying lions' tails in knots, parts of which rhymed. Ser Mark Mullendore brought a black-and-white monkey and fed him morsels from his own plate, while Ser Tanton of the red apple Fossoways climbed on the table and swore to slay Sandor Clegane in single combat. The vow might have been taken more solemnly if Ser Tanton had not had one foot in a gravy boat when he made it.

The height of folly was reached when a plump fool came capering out in gold-painted tin with a cloth lion's head, and chased a dwarf around the tables, whacking him over the head with a bladder. Finally King Renly demanded to know why he was beating his brother. "Why, Your Grace, I'm the Kinslayer," the fool said.

"It's _King_ slayer, fool of a fool," Renly said, and the hall rang with laughter.

Lord Rowan beside her did not join the merriment. "They are all so young," he said.

It was true. The Knight of Flowers could not have reached his second name day when Robert slew Prince Rhaegar on the Trident. Few of the others were very much older. They had been babes during the Sack of King's Landing, and no more than boys when Balon Greyjoy raised the iron islands in rebellion. _They are still unblooded_ , Catelyn thought as she watched Lord Bryce goad Ser Robar into juggling a brace of daggers. _It is all a game to them still, a tourney writ large, and all they see is the chance for glory and honour and spoils. They are boys drunk on song and story, and like all boys, they think themselves immortal._

"War will make them old," Catelyn said, "as it did us." She had been a girl when Robert and Ned and Jon Arryn raised their banners against Aerys Targaryen, a woman by the time the fighting was done. "I pity them."

"Why?" Lord Rowan asked her. "Look at them. They're young and strong, full of life and laughter. And lust, aye, more lust than they know what to do with. There will be many a bastard bred this night, I promise you. Why pity?"

"Because it will not last," Catelyn answered sadly. "Because they are the knights of summer, and winter is coming."

"Lady Catelyn, you are wrong." Brienne regarded her with eyes as blue as her armour. "Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it's always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maidens are beautiful, and the sun is always shining."

 _Winter will come for all of us_ , Catelyn thought. _For me, it came when Ned died. It will come for you too, child, and sooner than you like._ She did not have the heart to say it.

The king saved her. "Lady Catelyn," Renly called down. "I feel the need of some air. Will you walk with me?"

Catelyn stood at once. "I should be honoured."

Brienne was on her feet as well. "Your Grace, give me but a moment to don my mail. You should not be without protection."

King Renly smiled. "If I am not safe in the heart of Lord Caswell's castle, with my own host around me, one sword will make no matter—not even _your_ sword, Brienne. Sit and eat. If I have need of you, I'll send for you."

His words seemed to strike the girl harder than any blow she had taken that afternoon. "As you will, Your Grace." Brienne sat, eyes downcast. Renly took Catelyn's arm and led her from the hall, past a slouching guardsman who straightened so hurriedly that he near dropped his spear. Renly clapped the man on the shoulder and made a jest of it.

"This way, my lady." The king took her through a low door into a stair tower. As they started up, he said, "Perchance, is Ser Barristan Selmy with your son at Riverrun?"

"No," she answered, puzzled. "Is he no longer with Joffrey? He was the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard."

Renly shook his head. "The Lannisters told him he was too old and gave his cloak to the Hound. I'm told he left King's Landing vowing to take up service with the true king. That cloak Brienne claimed today was the one I was keeping for Selmy, in hopes that he might offer me his sword. When he did not turn up at Highgarden, I thought perhaps he had gone to Riverrun instead."

"We have not seen him."

"He was old, yes, but a good man still. I hope he has not come to harm. The Lannisters are great fools." They climbed a few more steps. "On the night of Robert's death, I offered your husband a hundred swords and urged him to take Joffrey into his power. Had he listened, he would be regent today, and there would have been no need for me to claim the throne."

"Ned refused you." She did not have to be told.

"He had sworn to protect Robert's children," Renly said. "I lacked the strength to act alone, so when Lord Eddard turned me away, I had no choice but to flee. Had I stayed, I knew the queen would see to it that I did not long outlive my brother."

 _Had you stayed, and lent your support to Ned, he might still be alive_ , Catelyn thought bitterly.

"I liked your husband well enough, my lady. He was a loyal friend to Robert, I know… but he would not listen and he would not bend. Here, I wish to show you something." They had reached the top of the stairwell. Renly pushed open a wooden door, and they stepped out onto the roof.

Lord Caswell's keep was scarcely tall enough to call a tower, but the country was low and flat and Catelyn could see for leagues in all directions. Wherever she looked, she saw fires. They covered the earth like fallen stars, and like the stars there was no end to them. "Count them if you like, my lady," Renly said quietly. "You will still be counting when dawn breaks in the east. How many fires burn around Riverrun tonight, I wonder?"

Catelyn could hear faint music drifting from the great hall, seeping out into the night. She dare not count the stars.

"I'm told your son crossed the Trident with twenty thousand swords at his back," Renly went on. "Now that the lords of the Trident are with him, perhaps he commands forty thousand."

 _No_ , she thought, _not near so many, we have lost men in battle, and others to the harvest._

"I have twice that number here," Renly said, "and this is only part of my strength. Mace Tyrell remains at Highgarden with another ten thousand, I have a strong garrison holding Storm's End, and soon enough the Dornishmen will join me with all their power. And never forget my brother Stannis, who holds Dragonstone and commands the lords of the Narrow Sea."

"It would seem that you are the one who has forgotten Stannis," Catelyn said, more sharply than she'd intended.

"His claim, you mean?" Renly laughed. "Let us be blunt, my lady. Stannis would make an appalling king. Nor is he like to become one. Men respect Stannis, even fear him, but precious few have ever loved him."

"He is still your elder brother. If either of you can be said to have a right to the Iron Throne, it is Lord Stannis."

Renly shrugged. "Tell me, what right did my brother Robert ever have to the Iron Throne?" He did not wait for an answer. "Oh, there was talk of the blood ties between Baratheon and Targaryen, of marriages a hundred years past, of second sons and elder daughters. None but the maesters care about any of it. Robert won the throne with his warhammer." He swept a hand across the campfires that burnt from horizon to horizon. "Well, there is my claim, as good as Robert's ever was. If your son supports me as his father supported Robert, he'll not find me ungenerous. I will gladly confirm him in all his lands, titles and honours. He can rule in Winterfell as he pleases. He can even go on calling himself King in the North if he likes, so long as he bends the knee and does me homage as his overlord. _King_ is only a word, but fealty, loyalty, service… those I must have."

"And if he will not give them to you, my lord?"

"I mean to be king, my lady, and not of a broken kingdom. I cannot say it plainer than that. Three hundred years ago, a Stark king knelt to Aegon the Dragon, when he saw he could not hope to prevail. That was wisdom. Your son must be wise as well. Once he joins me, this war is as good as done. We will take King's Landing, where we will avenge your husband with fire and sword, and restore the crownlands to my authority; then we will march northward, into the riverlands, to bring a reckoning to Tywin Lannister. Your son and your father together have not the strength to take Harrenhal. I do. With the threat of Lannisters marching from the crownlands into the lands of the Trident eliminated, we can safely lay siege to Harrenhal and our combined force will outnumber Lord Tywin by half a dozen to one. We need not storm the castle; given time, they'll run out of rats and be reduced to eating each other."

Catelyn felt ill. "You think the manhood of Westeros—"

"In Storm's End we had to hang eleven men after a sentry saw them burying the bones in the shadows at the side of the courtyard." The king said it so calmly, in a manner so devoid of horror or shock, that Catelyn scarcely registered what had been said until a few moments afterward. "Tywin Lannister is a dead man walking, though he may not know it yet."

She had to force herself to say the words. "And my son?"

"If he does me homage, as his lord father did to the last Baratheon king and as Stark lords have done to the Iron Throne for the last three-hundred years? A heroic and successful warrior. He will live to sixty name days and die in his bed in Winterfell surrounded by grandchildren. If not? Like Lord Tywin. I would regret it, but make no mistake, my lady; I can be patient. All it would take is for me to wait while your son and the Lannisters slaughter each other's men by the thousands, as is already occurring now, and then step in to put an end to this war once and for all. No matter who wins the war in the south, your son's two kingdoms together, one of them ravaged by war, have a fraction of the strength of the other five. Treason has no future. The future king will be myself or Joffrey, and no matter who, he or his successor will ensure he rules a united Westeros."

Catelyn bowed stiffly. "I believe I take your meaning, Your Grace."

"I believe you do," Renly said cheerfully. "Think well on what I have said. Meantime, there is a feast that will not eat itself. Mead and meat and music beckon!"

The king offered her an arm. She made no move. With a shrug, he bounded down the stairs, light on his feet, bold, fit, young and handsome. He was that certain he was the future. But the velvet veil of courtesy did not obliterate the underlying steel.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I don't expect all readers to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of ACoK, so I'll tell you the crucial point here. Most of this chapter is taken from canon. The difference is that, in canon, Catelyn's conversation with Renly was interrupted by a messenger arriving at Bitterbridge, bringing Renly news that Stannis had besieged Storm's End… and in _Knees Falling_ this did not happen.


	4. Chapter 4

**TYRION**

The candle at his desk was burning low. Tyrion called in a servant to bring another and bent down over the parchment.

 _CW_  
 _541 sg 5 sr 1 g_  
 _163 sg 9 sr 1 g_  
 _44 sg_  
 _190 1 d 11 m_  
 _36 3 d 20 m_  
 _m_  
 _1 20 d_

If 'CW' stood for 'City Watch' as he thought it did, that was the gold cloaks' wages, listed by rank. The writing in Littlefinger's accounts was not meant for outsiders. It was thick with abbreviations and it was often hard to tell the end of one number from the start of another, especially this far beyond dusk.

There was something odd about those numbers. Tyrion flipped back a week. There was no parallel expenditure then. He flipped a few days further back, in case he had missed it, and spotted no other such entry.

 _Why not? Have I misunderstood 'CW'?_ As multiple evenings and early mornings going through these accounts had told him, Littlefinger was not the sort of master of coin who was haphazard and disorganised with his payments.

Then an idea occurred to him. He flipped back a whole moon and, sure enough, he found more such accounts. This was not a weekly or fortnightly wage, it was a moonly one.

 _A pittance!… but of course._ Since Lord Renly had blocked the bounty of the Reach from the city, the price of food in King's Landing had been rising horrifically high. The ordinary gold cloaks were paid a pittance that would scarcely suffice to buy food, even lower than the wage of many in the city, but the wage jumped rapidly with position. A sergeant of the Watch earned thrice the wages of his men-at-arms, and for higher ranks it multiplied even greater, and, comparing the numbers in each rank, there were far more men in the upper ranks compared to the number of ordinary watchmen than there had been before. A gold cloak's wage was not high enough to drive out other forms of employment, but the lower ranks had a strong incentive to rise higher, and undoubtedly that required Littlefinger's patronage. Meantime, the lower-ranking gold cloaks had little choice but to live by corruption and intimidation, so that they had enough to eat. Tyrion knew that many of the city's merchants quietly paid off the City Watch, lest they meet with any 'accidents'. And of course it would be useful to a man like Petyr Baelish to drag his men into such practices. Corrupt men could be made loyal through the threat of exposing their wrongdoing.

What could be done? Little enough. He could hardly organise a mass demotion of the gold cloaks' upper ranks, nor could he demand higher wages for the common watchmen, given the parlous state of the realm's treasury. It was just another part of a disturbing picture about the hold that Littlefinger had over the city.

There was a knock on the door. "Not now," Tyrion said. "I'm busy."

"Begging your pardon, m'lord," came the voice of a messenger boy, "but you'll be wanting to hear this."

"A moment." With a sigh, his feet tingling with disuse, Tyrion stood. After calling in a servant to dress him, he strode out to the king's reception chamber.

The room was well lit, unlike his own bedchamber. Torches flickered at the sides, casting shadows that played in strange shadings with the intricately embroidered tapestries. Varys and Littlefinger were already seated. The latter looked perfectly healthy, even though he had been absent from the small council allegedly on grounds of illness until twelve days ago. Tyrion had not trusted the announcement for a minute; he had immediately ordered the Moon Brothers, Black Ears and Stone Crows to watch Littlefinger's chambers and brothels, the city gates and, more loosely, the city as a whole. They had caught no fewer than five men whose features from a distance resembled Littlefinger's trying to sneak out of the city by darkness. None of them were the man himself, nor had they ever met him; they had been hired, and advised on their disguises, by a nameless white-haired sellsword with lopsided teeth and a long nose. Not a trace of this sellsword had been found elsewhere in the city. Tyrion had even visited the master of coin while he was sick and found a man asleep in bed except for the occasional moment of woeful coughing and non-lucid wakefulness whose resemblance to the true Lord Baelish was startlingly strong. He had seriously considered the possibility that the sellsword with the long nose could have been working for Cersei or Varys and that Baelish might be genuinely ill, perhaps even poisoned, but he had not dismissed his watchful eyes and ears and that had profited him. When a bent-backed old drunkard had wandered into one of Littlefinger's brothels, Chella daughter of Cheyk had informed Tyrion at once; the disguise was good but the Black Ears were better. Tyrion had sent Bronn to hire some men to explore the nearby towns and castles in the hopes of finding out why and where Baelish had absented himself from the capital for nearly three weeks. Dressed and equipped as Tyroshi cloth merchants—King's Landing had no lack of men with Essosi heritage, who could imitate the accents and ways of dress well enough to fool a lord from out in the provinces—they had gone as far as three days' ride on a fast horse from King's Landing before they found Castle Spilbroke, a small keep to the east of Rosby, where a talkative servant had seen a man arrive from the direction of the city and be welcomed by Lord Spilbroke in the middle of the night, at the right time for it to be Baelish. Tyrion had not the faintest idea what Lord Petyr Baelish could be plotting with a minor crownlander lord like Raymont Spilbroke, scarcely a step up from a landed knight, but he still had his hirelings watching the man; he meant to find out.

Of course, he said nothing of this to Littlefinger. As far as he knew, the man had no idea he had been spotted, though he surely knew of the capture of the decoys, and Tyrion intended to keep it that way.

The next to appear was Grand Maester Pycelle. "What is the meaning of this, Captain?" he demanded of the burly watchman in the chamber. "I am an old man, tired…"

"M'lords," said the man, one of Bywater's underlings, "there's a knight who demanded to see the king's council at once. He came here in a cog from Gulltown and claims he's a courtier from the Eyrie."

Tyrion inhaled sharply. _The Eyrie._ They already knew that Lady Selyse Baratheon had come by ship to Gulltown and, for propriety's sake, had sat down to a feast with the Graftons and other lordlings and puffed-up personages of that city, on her way to treat with Lady Arryn. An ambitious merchant with a swift ship had come to King's Landing with that news more than a moon past, and a dozen others shortly afterward, but they had heard naught of Lady Baratheon meeting Lady Arryn yet. He had an idea of what this news might be, and he doubted it would hearten him.

They waited more than a quarter of an hour before Cersei deigned to grace them with her presence. She was dressed magnificently in a gown of deep Tyroshi purple and cloth-of-gold. The purple had probably been dearer.

"For what did you disturb my sleep?" she said, glaring at the watchman, who wilted beneath her eyes.

"There's a knight, Your Grace, Ser Gerold Lynderly," he said in a very small voice, "wanted to see the king's—His Grace's council, says he's a courtier with news from the Eyrie."

"Do you even know this so-called Ser Gerold is a knight and a Valeman? Any man can claim such a thing; it's quite different to be it."

The gold cloak reddened. "He talked like one, begging Your Grace's pardon."

"I see," said Cersei thinly. "Can you all do anything without me? Examine him, Grand Maester. If he is truly a courtier from the Eyrie, I would like to know it. If he is a liar, I want his head."

"Your Grace," Pycelle said, "I would need a book—"

 _Of course you do_ , Tyrion thought. _Not even a Grand Maester knows the name and face of every second cousin of a noble House in Westeros._ But Cersei only said, "Then _get one_."

By the time Ser Gerold's face, ancestry and heraldry had been suitably ascertained, it had been almost another hour. Tyrion was slouching in his chair, hating the bright light that kept his eyes open, when the courtier was finally allowed in to the reception room.

"Your Grace, my lords, Ser Gerold Lynderly!" A thin young man with a thick chestnut moustache was let in to the room, with two armed gold cloaks at his sides. His clothing was clearly of fine make but bore signs of wear.

"Your Grace," said Ser Gerold, kneeling before Cersei, who sat in the biggest chair, flanked by the four councillors. "My sword is yours."

"I am very glad of that, ser," Cersei said, her voice all soft courtesy. Tyrion wondered that she could be the model of demure politeness and yet she so frequently chose the face she presented to the world to be one of arrogance and derision. She addressed the gold cloaks: "Leave us."

They obeyed.

"Rise, Ser Gerold. What news do you bring for your queen?"

"I have long been at the court of the Eyrie, Your Grace, long before the Lady Lysa returned there from this city. A moon and five days past, Selyse Baratheon ascended the buckets and set foot in the Eyrie. She introduced herself as queen, and the Lady Lysa called her 'Your Grace'."

" _What_?" Cersei's voice was shrill.

"Er, yes, Your Grace." The knight sounded like he feared for his life. _If he does, that is wise of him._ "The Lady Lysa has always been erratic, Your Grace, ever since she set foot there a year ago. She spends her time playing with the hearts of her suitors; just when one thinks he has found her favour he is cast aside for another. She is fickle as any woman ever has been. But I stayed there for four days afterward, while she and Lady Baratheon spoke, and her mind seemed close to being set. She means for Lord Robert to wed Shireen Baratheon; she means for her son to be a king, to succeed Lord Stannis. As your faithful servant it fell to me to warn your royal self, so I rode to Gulltown as fast as I could and sailed here."

"I see," Cersei said softly. "Thank you for informing me of this, ser." She raised her voice. "Watchman!"

A gold cloak reappeared at the door a few moments later. "Your Grace?"

"Fetch a servant and ensure that Ser Gerold has some pleasant chambers for the night. He has had a long ride and a long voyage, with little rest."

The watchman bowed. "Your will, Your Grace."

Once the gold cloak had been dismissed, Cersei looked to him. "Tyrion, you've met Lady Arryn quite recently. Does that lickspittle's account hold water?"

"Lady Arryn dotes on her sickly, appalling little boy. She treats him like a baby and prefers to keep him close, but at the same time seems to think the world of him. Would she like to make him king, if the thought were presented to her? Yes, I think so."

"Then father must be informed."

"Yes, and word must be sent to the Rock and our other loyal lords as well. Grand Maester," Tyrion said, "see to it."

Pycelle seemed surprised by the abrupt dismissal. "My lord, Your Grace, my counsel—"

"Has been heard enough today. I hope you will not keep our lord father waiting."

Tyrion woke up very late the next morning. It was the morning after that when he headed to the throne room to treat with Ser Cleos Frey.

The Iron Throne of Aegon the Conqueror was a tangle of nasty barbs and jagged metal teeth waiting for any fool who tried to sit too comfortably. Nonetheless, when she swept imperiously into the room and sat down, Queen Cersei looked as if she were born on it. She was robed in green silk, clasped by gold and rubies, with ermine white as snow over her shoulders. Lannister guardsmen stood silent in their crimson cloaks and lion-crested halfhelms. Ser Jacelyn's gold cloaks faced them across the hall. The steps to the throne were flanked by Ser Arys Oakheart and Ser Boros Blount, both of them sworn brothers of the Kingsguard. Courtiers filled the gallery while supplicants clustered near the towering oak-and-bronze doors. Sansa Stark looked especially lovely this morning, though her face was as pale as milk. Lord Gyles stood coughing, while poor cousin Tyrek wore his bridegroom's mantle of miniver and velvet. Since his marriage to little Lady Ermesande three days past, the other squires had taken to calling him "Wet Nurse" and asking him what sort of swaddling clothes his bride wore on their wedding night.

"Ser Cleos Frey may be admitted to my presence," the Queen Regent called, her voice echoing through the chamber. Unexpectedly, Tyrion felt a stab of envy, just for that.

Ser Cleos made the long walk between the gold cloaks and the crimson, looking neither right nor left. He knelt before the Iron Throne.

"The northmen's terms are wholly unacceptable," Cersei decreed. "These are the terms that you will bring to Stark. He must swear fealty to His Grace Joffrey of the House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm and cease warring against his vassals. There will be an exchange of hostages: the freedom of my brother Ser Jaime Lannister and my cousins Willem Lannister and Tion Frey in exchange for the freedom of Lord Medger Cerwyn, Ser Wylis Manderly, Ser Donnel Locke, Harrion Karstark and Lord Stark's sisters Sansa and Arya Stark and the return of the sword Ice. If our hostages are harmed, the same harm will be done to his. Tell him he would be well-advised to accept our terms the first time, for they are generous. We offer four highborn men of the north, and his sisters, and his ancestral sword, for only three highborn men of the south, two of them young. If this offer is rejected out of hand, we will be less generous."

Before the news of the day before yesterday, they had planned to insist that Jaime be freed first. Now, with the threat of the royal fleet and the hosts of the Vale allying with the Stark boy under the banner of Lord Stannis, their plans had changed considerably.

"In exchange for this peace," Cersei continued, "we will draw a line under this year of turmoil and bloodshed. There will be no retribution enacted against Houses Tully and Stark for treason, nor against their lords bannermen. Harrenhal will remain in His Grace the King's hands. The hosts of Lords Tully and Stark will not fight His Grace the King's hosts, and loyal vassals of His Grace the King will be sent as observers to Riverrun, Winterfell and other major castles in the riverlands and the north, sending ravens every week, to confirm that these terms are not being broken. Tell him that he will never achieve a better peace than this. Tell him that my lord father maintains a strong defence in the southern riverlands, a line which all of his strength will not suffice to break." She looked ill. "And tell… tell him that he has fewer allies than he may think, for Prince Doran Martell and I have consented that his son, Prince Trystane, should wed my daughter, Princess Myrcella."

Whispers flowed across the gallery. Some sounded pleased; others did not.

"His father's bones will return to him with you, to show His Grace the King's good faith."

"Your Grace," Ser Cleos replied, "I will convey these terms to Lord Stark."

"I will send fifty men of my guard with you, to protect you on the way. Gods speed."

As Ser Cleos left the room, a herald stepped forward and said, "If any man has other matters to set forth before the Queen Regent and the King's council, let him speak now or go forth and hold his silence."

" _I_ will be heard." A slender man all in black pushed his way between the Redwyne twins.

"Ser _Alliser_!" Tyrion exclaimed. "Why, I had no notion that you'd come to court. You should have sent me word."

"I have, as well you know." Thorne was as prickly as his name, a spare, sharp-featured man of fifty, hard-eyed and hard-handed, his black hair streaked with grey. "I have been shunned, ignored, and left to wait like some baseborn servant."

"The Queen Regent is not here to listen to complaints," Ser Boros said harshly. "Speak now or be silent."

"How may we be of help to you, good brother?" Grand Maester Pycelle asked in soothing tones.

"The Lord Commander sent me to His Grace the King," Thorne answered. "The matter is too grave to be left to servants."

Tyrion winced. _That was not a wise thing to imply to my sister._

"His Grace the King is not yet of age," Cersei told him. "I am his mother and his regent. I rule on his behalf."

Ser Alliser must have sensed the danger, or perhaps he was just familiar with the pride of queens and princes. "I most humbly beg your pardon, Your Grace. I meant no offence to your dignity or to your station." His voice sounded as if he were eating lemons whole.

"You are granted it." The man lived at the Wall, but Tyrion fancied it could not be much colder than Cersei's voice was at this very moment. "What do you ask of me?"

"Your Grace, the Lord Commander sent me to tell you that we found two rangers, long missing. They were dead, yet when we brought the corpses back to the Wall they rose again in the night. One slew Ser Jaremy Rykker, while the other tried to murder the Lord Commander."

Tyrion heard someone snigger. _He fought for Aerys Targaryen in the Rebellion. Does he mean to mock us?_ Surely that was likelier than there being any truth to such a bizarre tale. And yet… and yet…

Tyrion remembered a cold night under the stars when he'd stood beside the boy Jon Snow and a great white wolf atop the Wall at the end of the world, gazing out at the trackless dark beyond. He had felt… what?… _something_ , to be sure, a dread that had cut like that frigid northern wind. A wolf had howled off in the night, and the sound had sent a shiver through him.

 _Don't be a fool_ , he told himself. _A wolf, a wind, a dark forest, it meant nothing. And yet…_ he had come to have a liking for old Jeor Mormont during his time at Castle Black. And he was not sure he believed that there was truly nothing beyond the Wall but wildlings and endless snow.

Cersei felt no such uncertainty. She said, sweetly, "So you mean to tell me that you have come here from the Wall to tell me that the Night's Watch is under threat from dead men?"

This time Ser Alliser wholly missed the danger in her tone. "It is, Your Grace," he said with all earnestness. "I saw it with my own eyes, as did the Lord Commander. We brought back Jared's hand as proof. It was dead and rotting but it was still moving, and sought to kill."

For one unbelievable moment Tyrion thought the man might have saved himself. Cersei seemed interested. "I would see this hand."

"Your Grace, it rotted to pieces while I was kept waiting. There's naught left to show but bones."

Cersei exploded. "Do you think me a little girl, to shudder in fear of snarks and grumkins? _I am the Queen Regent_! I will not hear such mockery. I _will not hear it_! Ser Arys, throw this insolent filth in the black cells."

Thorne knew better than to challenge a knight of the Kingsguard. "Your Grace, I mean no mockery!" he cried. "It is no mockery! The Lord Commander saw it himself; if you send a raven to Castle Black they will tell you the same tale! I would never have come here with such a tale if I didn't have proof!" He flailed around wildly in Ser Arys Oakheart's arms, eventually seizing on an idea. " _The Imp_! The Imp kept me waiting, out of ill will!"

"You _will not_ insult my brother in my presence! Get him out of my sight!"

Tyrion's shock at his sister defending him in public was tempered by the knowledge that it was only because she now hated Ser Alliser more. Still, it felt almost pleasant. And he felt little regard for Thorne's cause now that the man had tried to blame him.

At Cersei's signal, the herald cried an end, and the court began to empty as the Queen Regent stormed to her own apartments, fair face twisted by fury. Grand Maester Pycelle had already scuttled off, but Varys and Littlefinger had watched it all, start to finish. Littlefinger drew Tyrion aside. "A word, my lord, if I may."

Tyrion followed. "Lord Petyr, I sense that you are unhappy with me."

"I love you as much I ever have, my lord. Though I do not relish being played for a fool. If Myrcella weds Trystane Martell, she can scarcely wed Robert Arryn, can she?"

"Not without causing great scandal," he admitted. "I regret my little ruse, Lord Petyr, but when we spoke, I could not know the Dornishmen would accept my offer."

Littlefinger was not appeased. "I do not like being lied to, my lord. Leave me out of your next deception."

 _Only if you'll do the same for me_ , Tyrion thought, glancing at the dagger sheathed at Littlefinger's hip. "If I have given offence, I am deeply sorry. All men know how much we love you, my lord. And how much we need you."

"Try and remember that." Littlefinger left the throne room.

Tyrion breathed deeply. He had very nearly commented on how much his family would miss Littlefinger if they lost him, but any such reference to Littlefinger's supposed illness so long after it had happened would imply Tyrion's own awareness of the deception behind it. He did not dare take such a risk. He did not want to move against Lord Baelish until and unless he was ready.

Tyrion headed back to Varys, who had stood in another corner of the room, his eyes inscrutable. "Walk with me," he said to the eunuch. They left through the king's door behind the throne, the eunuch's slippers whisking lightly over the stone.

"I grow ever more admiring of you, my lord," Varys confessed. "However did you manage to persuade your sister to release half of her own guard?"

"Oh, quite simply. I told her it is part of my scheme to free Jaime. And in a way, it even is."

Varys stroked a powdered cheek. "This would doubtless involve the four men your man Bronn searched for so diligently in all the low places of King's Landing. A thief, a poisoner, a mummer, and a murderer."

"Put them in crimson cloaks and lion helms, they'll look no different than any other guardsmen. I searched for some time for a ruse that might get them into Riverrun before I thought to hide them in plain sight. They'll ride in by the main gate, flying Lannister banners and escorting Lord Eddard's bones." He smiled crookedly. "Four men alone would be watched vigilantly. Four men among fifty can lose themselves. So we had to send the true guardsmen as well as the false, as my sister agreed. Truth be told I'm pleased it worked so well; I did not dare ask for her whole guard, lest she suspect my other purpose, and it was a risk to gamble on even so high as fifty."

"Cleverly done, my lord. Still, the loss of her red cloaks will surely make her uneasy."

"I like her uneasy," said Tyrion.

Ser Cleos Frey left that very afternoon, escorted by fifty red-cloaked Lannister guardsmen. The men Robb Stark had sent joined them at the Gate of the Gods for the long ride west.

That night he feasted with the Stone Crows and Moon Brothers in the Small Hall, though he shunned the wine for once. He wanted all his wits about him. "Shagga, what moon is this?"

Shagga's frown was a fierce thing. "Black, I think."

"In the west, they call that a traitor's moon. Try not to get too drunk tonight, and see that your axe is sharp."

"A Stone Crow's axe is always sharp, and Shagga's axes are sharpest of all. Once I cut off a man's head, but he did not know it until he tried to brush his hair. Then it fell off."

"Is that why you never brush yours?" The Stone Crows roared and stamped their feet, Shagga hooting loudest of all.

By midnight, the castle was silent and dark. Doubtless a few gold cloaks on the walls spied them leaving the Tower of the Hand, but no-one raised a voice. He was the Hand of the King, and where he went was his own affair.

The thin wooden door split with a thunderous _crack_ beneath the heel of Shagga's boot. Pieces went flying inward, and Tyrion heard a woman's gasp of fear. Shagga hacked the door apart with three great blows of his axe and kicked his way through the ruins. Timett followed, and then Tyrion, stepping gingerly over the splinters. The fire had burnt down to a few glowing embers, and shadows lay thick across the bedchamber. When Timett ripped the heavy curtains off the bed, the naked serving girl stared up with wide white eyes. "Please, my lords," she pleaded, "don't hurt me." She cringed away from Shagga, flushed and fearful, trying to cover her charms with her hands and coming up a hand short.

"Go," Tyrion told her. "It's not you we want."

"Shagga wants this woman."

"Shagga wants every whore in this city of whores," complained Timett son of Timett.

"Yes," Shagga said, unabashed. "Shagga would give her a strong child."

"If she wants a strong child, she'll know who to seek," Tyrion said. "Timett, see her out… gently, if you would."

The Burnt Man pulled the girl from the bed and half-marched, half-dragged her across the chamber. Shagga watched them go, mournful as a puppy. The girl stumbled over the shattered door and out into the hall, helped along by a firm shove from Timett. Above their heads, the ravens were screeching.

Tyrion dragged the soft blanket off the bed, uncovering Grand Maester Pycelle beneath. "Tell me, does the Citadel approve of you bedding the serving wenches, maester?"

The old man was as naked as the girl, though he made a markedly less attractive sight. For once, his heavy-lidded eyes were open wide. "W-what is the meaning of this? I am an old man, your loyal servant…"

Tyrion hoisted himself onto the bed. "So loyal that you sent only one of my letters to Doran Martell. The other you gave to my sister."

"N-no," squealed Pycelle. "No, a falsehood, I swear it, it was not me. Varys, it was Varys, the Spider, I warned you—"

"Do all maesters lie so poorly? I told Varys that I was giving Prince Doran my nephew Tommen to foster. I told Littlefinger that I planned to wed Myrcella to Lord Robert of the Eyrie. I told no-one that I had offered Myrcella to the Dornish… that truth was only in the letter I entrusted to _you_."

Pycelle clutched for a corner of the blanket. "Birds are lost, messages stolen or sold… it was Varys, there are things I might tell you of the eunuch that would chill your blood…"

"My lady prefers my blood hot."

"Make no mistake, for every secret the eunuch whispers in your ear, he holds seven back. And Littlefinger, that one…"

"My lady prefers my blood hot."

"Make no mistake, for every secret the eunuch whispers in your ear, he holds seven back. And Littlefinger, that one…"

"I know all about Lord Petyr. He's almost as untrustworthy as you. Shagga, cut off his manhood and feed it to the goats."

Shagga hefted the huge double-bladed axe. "There are no goats, Halfman."

"Make do."

Roaring, Shagga leapt forward. Pycelle shrieked and wet the bed, urine spraying in all directions as he tried to scramble back out of reach. The wildling caught him by the end of his billowy white beard and hacked off three quarters of it with a single slash of the axe.

"Timett, do you suppose our friend will be more forthcoming without those whiskers to hide behind?" Tyrion used a bit of the sheet to wipe the piss off his boots.

"He will tell the truth soon." Darkness pooled in the empty pit of Timett's burnt eye. "I can smell the stink of his fear."

Shagga tossed a handful of hair down to the rushes, and seized what beard was left. "Hold still, maester," urged Tyrion. "When Shagga gets angry, his hands shake."

"Shagga's hands never shake," the huge man said indignantly, pressing the great crescent blade under Pycelle's quivering chin and sawing through another tangle of beard.

"How long have you been spying for my sister?" Tyrion asked.

Pycelle's breathing was rapid and shallow. "All I did, I did for House Lannister." A sheen of sweat covered the broad dome of the old man's brow, and wisps of white hair clung to his wrinkled skin. "Always… for years… your lord father, ask him, I was ever his true servant… it was I who bid Aerys open his gates…"

 _That_ took Tyrion by surprise. He had been no more than an ugly boy at Casterly Rock when the city fell. "So the Sack of King's Landing was your work as well?"

"For the realm! Once Rhaegar died, the war was done. Aerys was mad, Viserys too young, Prince Aegon a babe at the breast, but the realm needed a king… I prayed it should be your good father, but Robert was too strong, and Lord Stark moved too swiftly…"

"How many have you betrayed, I wonder? Aerys, Eddard Stark, me… King Robert as well? Lord Arryn, Prince Rhaegar? Where does it begin, Pycelle?" He _knew_ where it ended.

The axe scratched at the apple of Pycelle's throat and stroked the soft wobbly skin under his jaw, scraping away the last hairs. "You… were not here," he gasped when the blade moved upwards to his cheeks. "Robert… his wounds… if you had seen them, smelt them, you would have no doubt…"

"Oh, I know the boar did your work for you… but if he'd left the job half done, doubtless you would have finished it."

"He was a wretched king… vain, drunken, lecherous… he would have set your sister aside, his own queen… please… Renly was plotting to bring the Highgarden maid to court, to entice his brother… it is the gods' own truth…"

"And what was Lord Arryn plotting?"

"He _knew_ ," Pycelle said. "About… about…"

"I know what he knew about," snapped Tyrion, who was not anxious for Shagga and Timett to know as well.

"He was sending his wife back to the Eyrie, and his son to be fostered on Dragonstone… he meant to act…"

"So you poisoned him first."

" _No_." Pycelle struggled feebly. Shagga growled and grabbed his head. The clansman's hand was so big he could have crushed the maester's skull like an eggshell had he squeezed.

Tyrion _tsk_ ed at him. "I saw the tears of Lys among your potions. And you sent away Lord Arryn's own maester and tended him yourself, so you could make certain that he died."

"A falsehood!"

"Shave him closer," Tyrion suggested. "The throat agin."

The axe swept back down, rasping over the skin. A thin film of spit bubbled on Pycelle's lips as his mouth trembled. "I tried to save Lord Arryn. I vow—"

"Careful now, Shagga, you've cut him."

Shagga growled. "Dolf fathered warriors, not barbers."

When he felt the blood trickling down his neck and onto his chest, the old man shuddered, and the last strength went out of him. He looked shrunken, both smaller and frailer than he had been when they burst in on him. "Yes," he whimpered, " _yes_ , Colemon was purging, so I sent him away. The queen needed Lord Arryn dead, she did not say so, could not, Varys was listening, always listening, but when I looked at her I knew. It was not me who gave him the poison, though, I swear it." The old man wept. "Varys will tell you, it was the boy, his squire, Hugh he was called, he must surely have done it, ask your sister, ask her."

Tyrion was disgusted. "Bind him and take him away," he commanded. "Throw him down in one of the black cells."

They dragged him out the splintered door. "Lannister," he moaned, "all I've done has been for Lannister…"

When he was gone, Tyrion made a leisurely search of his quarters and collected a few more small jars from his shelves. The ravens muttered above his head as he worked, a strangely peaceful noise. He would need to find someone to tend the birds until the Citadel sent a man to replace Pycelle.

 _He was the one I'd hoped to trust._ Varys and Littlefinger were no more loyal, he suspected… only more subtle, and thus more dangerous. Perhaps his father's way would have been best: summon Ilyn Payne, mount three heads above the gates, and have done. _And wouldn't that be a pretty sight_ , he thought.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** In addition to the obvious differences from canon, there's something a bit more subtle, except to those who've memorised every scene of ACoK. In canon, Tyrion and Cersei heard news of Stannis besieging Storm's End, and while Cersei was distracted by her glee, Tyrion was able to slip her a laxative that left her indisposed for a while, so _he_ sat on the Iron Throne during this scene. In _Knees Falling_ he didn't get this opportunity for obvious reasons.


	5. Chapter 5

**ARYA**

Whatever names Harren the Black had meant to give his towers were long forgotten. They were called the Tower of Dread, the Widow's Tower, the Wailing Tower, the Tower of Ghosts, and Kingspyre Tower. Arya slept in a shallow niche in the cavernous vaults beneath the Wailing Tower, on a bed of straw. She had water to wash in whenever she liked, a chunk of soap. The work was hard, but no harder than walking miles every day. Weasel did not need to find worms and bugs to eat, as Arry had; there was bread every day, and barley stews with bits of carrot and turnip and once a fortnight even a bite of meat.

Hot Pie ate even better; he was where he belonged, in the kitchens, a round stone building with a domed roof that was a world unto itself. Arya took her meals at a trestle table in the undercroft with Weese and his other charges, but sometimes she would be chosen to help fetch their food, and she and Hot Pie could steal a moment to talk. He could never remember that she was now Weasel and kept calling her Arry, even though he knew she was a girl. Once he tried to slip her a hot apple tart, but he made such a clumsy job of it that two of the cooks saw. They took the tart away and beat him with a big wooden spoon.

Gendry had been sent to the forge; Arya seldom saw him. As for those she served with, she did not even want to know their names. That only made it hurt worse when they died. Most of them were older than she was and content to let her alone.

Harrenhal was vast, much of it far gone in decay. Lady Whent had held the castle as bannerman to House Tully, but she'd used only the lower thirds of two of the five towers, and let the rest go to ruin. Now she was fled, and the small household she'd left could not begin to tend the needs of all the knights, lords, and highborn prisoners Lord Tywin had brought, so the Lannisters must forage for servants as well as for plunder and provender. The talk was that Lord Tywin planned to restore Harrenhal to glory, and make it his new seat once the war was done.

Weese used Arya to run messages, draw water, and fetch food, and sometimes to serve at table in the Barracks Hall above the armoury, where the men-at-arms took their meals. But most of her work was cleaning. The ground floor of the Wailing Tower was given over to storerooms and granaries, and two floors above housed part of the garrison, but the upper storeys had not been occupied for eighty years. Now Lord Tywin had commanded that they be made fit for habitation again. There were floors to be scrubbed, grime to be washed off windows, broken chairs and rotted beds to be carried off. The topmost storey was infested with nests of the huge black bats that House Whent had used for its sigil, and there were rats in the cellars as well… and ghosts, some said, the spirits of Harren the Black and his sons.

Arya thought that was stupid. Harren and his sons had died in Kingspyre Tower, that was why it had that name, so why should they cross the yard to haunt her? The Wailing Tower only wailed when wind blew from the north, and that was just the sound the air made blowing through the cracks in the stones where they had fissured from the heat. If there _were_ ghosts in Harrenhal, they never troubled her. It was the living men she feared, Weese and Ser Gregor Clegane and Lord Tywin Lannister himself, who kept his apartments in Kingspyre Tower, still the tallest and mightiest of all, though lopsided beneath the weight of the slagged stone that made it look like some giant half-melted black candle.

She wondered what Lord Tywin would do if she marched up to him and confessed to being Arya Stark, but she knew she'd never get near enough to talk to him, and anyhow he'd never believe her if she did, and afterward Weese would beat her bloody.

In his own small strutting way, Weese was nearly as scary as Ser Gregor. The Mountain swatted men like flies, but most of the time he did not seem to know the fly was there. Weese _always_ knew you were there, and what you were doing, and sometimes what you were thinking. He would hit at the slightest provocation, and he had a dog who was near as bad as he was, an ugly spotted bitch that smelt worse than any dog Arya had ever known. Once she saw him set the dog on a latrine boy who'd annoyed him. She tore a big chunk out of the boy's calf while Weese laughed.

It took him only three days to earn the place of honour in her nightly prayers. "Weese," she would whisper, first of all. "Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei." If she let herself forget even one of them, how would she ever find him again to kill him?

On the road, Arya had felt like a sheep, but Harrenhal turned her into a mouse. She was grey as a mouse in her scratchy wool shift, and like a mouse she kept to the crannies and crevices and dark holes of the castle, scurrying out of the way of the mighty.

Sometimes she thought they were _all_ mice within those thick walls, even the knights and great lords. The size of the castle made even Gregor Clegane seem small. Harrenhal covered thrice as much ground as Winterfell, and its buildings were so much larger they could scarcely be compared. Its stables housed a thousand horses, its godswood covered twenty acres, its kitchens were as large as Winterfell's Great Hall, and its own great hall, grandly named the Hall of a Hundred Hearths even though it only had thirty and some (Arya had tried to count them, twice, but she came up with thirty-three once and thirty-five the other time) was so cavernous that Lord Tywin could have feasted his entire host (he never did, though). Walls, doors, halls, steps, everything was built to an inhuman scale that made Arya remember the stories Old Nan used to tell of the giants who lived beyond the Wall.

Lords and ladies never notice the little grey mice under their feet, so Arya heard all sorts of secrets just by keeping her ears open as she went about her duties. Pretty Pia from the buttery was a slut who was working her way through every knight in the castle. The wife of the gaoler was with child, but the real father was either Ser Alyn Stackspear or a singer called Whitesmile Wat. Lord Lefford made mock of ghosts at table, but always kept a candle burning by his bed. Ser Dunaver's squire Jodge could not hold his water when he slept. The cooks despised Ser Harys Swyft and spat in all his food. Once she even overheard Maester Tothmure's serving girl confiding to her brother about some message that said Joffrey was a bastard and not the rightful king at all. "Lord Tywin told him to burn the letter and never speak such filth again," the girl whispered.

She thought it was about a fortnight after she reached Harrenhal, though she couldn't be sure, that the castle burst into whispers. There were strange names she heard, like Velaryon, Lynderly, Grafton and Celtigar, though she had no idea as to their meaning. All the knights were discussing it, and things like defensive lines, fording of rivers, the difference between alliance and co-belligerence, and great banquets and receptions. The problem was that none of them said exactly what had happened, because all of them knew.

It took several days before she had any clue about what it meant. "Lord Tywin got a raven from the queen and the Imp in King's Landing and they heard it from a highborn knight who fled the Eyrie," a Lannister man-at-arms was explaining to his fellow, who had returned from foraging. "Selyse Baratheon, calling herself a queen, was feasted by Lord Grafton in Gulltown, then arrived in the Eyrie and was feasted by Lady Arryn too. Word is, the Vale will follow Dragonstone. If they are, some say the Young Wolf will join in too, but Lord Tywin thinks he'll want to stay as a king so they might not be proper allies; but they'll still be fighting on the same side against us."

Even Lannister soldiers were no longer confident of victory. "Lord Renly's marching to King's Landing," she heard one pikeman murmur to another, "and Stark, Tully and Arryn all coming down on us from the other side. Lord Tywin's a tough man, but those don't look like betting odds to me."

Arya still did not know wholly what was happening, and there were still references to Lord Renly, whose face she remembered, and who she had heard was marching towards King's Landing with a mighty host. But it was Queen Selyse who had caught her imagination. Arya had never heard of Selyse Baratheon—probably King Robert's sister, as Lord Renly was his brother—but she did know Lady Arryn was her aunt, and Lady Arryn liked Selyse, and the Lannisters were scared of her, so she couldn't be too bad. She hoped Queen Selyse—whom she pictured as a warrior-queen, like Nymeria from the songs—would come to Harrenhal with a vast army and kill Weese, Ser Gregor, Lord Tywin and all of the others, and then her aunt would recognise her, smile at her and take her home.

She tried not to think of it too hard, though. Once, she was, then Weese touched her lightly on the shoulder, then, when she turned, hit her hard around the face and told her to fetch dinner for Ser Donnel.

Whatever was happening, with Renly and Queen Selyse and her aunt Lady Arryn and whoever else, when Lord Tywin received Queen Cersei's raven it was ill news for the small grey mice in Harrenhal. Suddenly the men grown were going outside, chopping trees and moving food and building wagons. Meantime, the people left inside the castle were left to do far more of the work. She had to get up early in the morning, before the crack of dawn, and keep rushing about to bring food and drink and messages and clean things all across the castle till the sun had long since set outside. Weese took pleasure in the new pace, whereas for Arya it was exhausting. But she did have time to look outside the window in the upper-storey room whose floor she was scrubbing two days after she overheard about her aunt, when she knew it was the afternoon for the army to leave the castle.

The great courtyard was full of men-at-arms. The sunlight was coming in the wrong way; it was flung everywhere by the fresh wood and gleaming metal, so it was hard for her to see them. Armoured knights on their great horses, countless men on foot with their pikes and bows and swords and more, great wagons full of food drawn by packhorses and mules, and of course the banners, beautiful and brightly coloured. Chief among them was the lion of cloth-of-gold that stood for House Lannister, vast, enormous, sprawling across an ocean of red cloth big enough for a smallfolk family to live on. It towered over the others, flying in the air. It must have been most of the Lannister army, arrayed before her all at once.

Lord Tywin Lannister, dressed magnificently in gilded armour and a great scarlet cape, was speaking with the other old man on a horse at the head of the column, who also wore Lannister colours. For a moment she thought that Lord Tywin himself was leading his army away, but then he and the other knight clasped hands for a few seconds and he wheeled his destrier around to return to the castle. The other knight said some words to his gathered men-at-arms, much too far away for her to hear, then the great glittering host left Harrenhal, heading southward by the light of the mid-afternoon sun.


	6. Chapter 6

**CATELYN**

The castle rose out of the morning mists. Smallfolk still toiled in the surrounding fields, wet and sweet with dew and last night's rainfall. It was not the greatest of keeps, being smaller by far than Bitterbridge and not even a shadow of Winterfell, but fat cows were grazing on the rolling hills of green and gold and some smallfolk were busy picking raspberries. It was a sad thing to see a sight like this, and it made Catelyn oddly resentful. The Reach remained unspoilt and happy, while, to the north, her father's kingdom burnt.

A tall young knight, flanked by men-at-arms, issued from the castle's gate to greet her. "My lady, sers," he said, nodding to Catelyn and her escort, "I am Ser Quentyn Morly. What brings you to Berryhill Keep?"

"We are passing through, ser, to Riverrun. I am Catelyn Stark, Lady Dowager of Winterfell, sent by my son to treat with King Renly, whom we found at Bitterbridge." She chose not to mention that she had been unsuccessful and her son still claimed kingship himself. That could have been unwise. "My highborn companions are Ser Wendel Manderly and Robin Flint, of my son's vassals, and Ser Colen of Greenpools, of your king's."

She would not be expected to name her son's or Renly's guardsmen.

"My lady of Stark," Ser Quentyn acknowledged with a low bow. "If it please you, you are past half the way to the goldroad. My lord uncle would be honoured if you were to take food and shelter here."

"We must not tarry long, for we are expected at Riverrun," answered Catelyn, "but I accept your lord uncle's hospitality."

The knight and his guardsmen escorted her to Berryhill Keep's gate, where servants took their cloaks and packages, grooms led their horses to the stables and they put up their swords on the wall. The lord who bade them enter was a portly man with greying hair and a kindly smile.

Once Catelyn had washed and rested, a maid directed her to Lord Morly's table. He had not stinted her. There was a veritable feast before them, with a stuffed goose speckled with peppers and small potatoes as naught but the first course.

"You have my gratitude for your hospitality, my lord," Catelyn told Lord Morly as she dug into the roast goose. "The ride has been long and without a road to spare the horses. Your open-handedness has been most welcome."

"Of course, my lady. I could do no less. I do hope my nephew was suitably courteous as he greeted you. He _is_ rather overzealous sometimes."

"Certainly, my lord of Morly, he was the very model of gentility."

"Morly?" The lord chuckled. "My apologies, my lady of Stark, I see how you could have come to that conclusion. My name is Edric Berryhill. Young Quentyn is my sister's boy." When her eyebrows raised, he added, "Her husband died in the Vale of Ranimon when Lord Tyrell threw back Ser Stannis Baratheon's army as he closed in on Storm's End, so I took in her and her children and they have lived here ever since."

 _Of course._ It was uncommon for a woman and her children to live with her lord brother, but if it had happened, that would surely be why. Mace Tyrell's advance on Storm's End in the name of King Aerys during the rebellion had been far from the bloodiest of campaigns, with most of the strength of the stormlands serving under Robert Baratheon further north, but even the least significant of wars claimed lives aplenty.

"Are they well?" she asked.

"As well as they could be, I suppose," replied Lord Berryhill. "He regards me almost as a father, which is all to the good, as he is all I have for a son. I have only daughters, you see, my lady. I've a mind to marry him to my eldest; House Morly is only a House of landed knights, and his father was a second son in any case, so he can take my name. It wasn't quite an equal marriage, but my goodbrother was a good knight, my sister was fond of him, and he seemed sure to be rewarded with some lands for his bravery serving King Aerys. Well…"

He gave an eloquent shrug. Catelyn pitied him. No doubt there had been many such men, bold young men who had sought to win fame, fortune and lands to pass down to their children, picking the sure bet of taking the side of a royal dynasty that had reigned for three centuries and had never been defeated by rebellion… and they had failed.

"My sister still grieves for him, but her children have prospered. Her son will be Lord Berryhill after me and her daughter will have a good marriage. He wants to ride out too, you know, as his father did, with King Renly, but I have forbidden it. Even the king forbade it; he commanded the Houses whose lands lie too close to the west to retain our men for ourselves, lest the westermen easily overthrow us. Hence why my peasants have been called to arms and my levies are training, spoiling my lands' quiet tranquillity."

Catelyn had to bite her tongue so that she could not reply. She had not even noticed Lord Berryhill's levies training. _He thinks of this serene scene as a breach of tranquillity? Let him see the tranquillity of the lands of the Trident, my family lands, which Tywin Lannister's dogs are burning._

Lord Berryhill misread her expression. "Yes, war is trying, for all of us. Yet I think he still resents me for depriving him of the opportunity to go out and win honour and glory at the king's side."

That story was a resonating one. "Your way is better for him, my lord," she said in a low voice. "Only young men think of war in such glowing terms. We older folk are wiser in that at least." _Because they are the knights of summer, and winter is coming._

There was a long silence. The goose was good, and so were the other courses. Catelyn savoured the warmth of her seat and the soft, delicate tastes and smells of a good meal. There was little comfort on the road.

"Speaking of Lord Stannis," Lord Berryhill said suddenly, "I don't suppose you've heard word? The king sent a raven which arrived only yesterday."

"Lord Stannis has sailed from Dragonstone?" Catelyn was suddenly alert.

"He has," said Lord Berryhill, "but not to King's Landing."

 _What?!_

Lord Berryhill saw the expression on her face. "'Tis a very queer affair. Only eleven days past, some puffed-up prancing courtier came into King's Landing at the dead of night to bring some tidings to the queen and her Imp Hand. He said Selyse Baratheon, Lady of Dragonstone, had come to the Eyrie with a delegation of Narrow Sea lords, calling herself a queen, and Lady Arryn had welcomed her and even called her 'Your Grace'. They were negotiating for days and seemed close to agreement when he left the Eyrie. All this, he said, took place only a shade more than a moon before the time of his arrival. Of course, the queen told him to keep quiet, but the man's a fool desperate for his name to be heard of, so by the very next morning half the city had heard tell, and the news came to King Renly by a trader's ship in the stormlands and a raven shortly afterward. Then, though his strength seemed to be in the Vale, a fast rider came from Storm's End to tell the king Lord Stannis has landed with the royal fleet and his army and has laid siege to his brother's seat."

 _Storm's End?_ Catelyn felt as if she had been punched in the gut. _Lord Stannis has not moved against the Lannisters; he has moved against Lord Renly!_

"'Tis plain to see that Lord Stannis's delegation in the Eyrie failed, but everything changed so quickly. Going by the times the courtier and the rider told of, Lord Stannis landed at Storm's End less than three weeks after the court of the Eyrie were convinced Lady Arryn was about to march behind him. It must have taken a couple of days for a raven from the Eyrie to reach him, and even if the weather were kind, a week or thereabouts to sail to Storm's End. That leaves naught but a week and a half or less. Now, I'm no sailor, my lady, and I cannot speak for ships, but it surely took more than a week and a half to call the banners and train the levies of the dozen small Narrow Sea islands that are Lord Stannis's domain. He must have known Lady Arryn's mind better than we or the Lannisters did; he must have already been prepared to strike against King Renly if his delegation failed. Even if Lord Stannis set sail as soon as he heard tell of the refusal, that means Lady Arryn went in under a fortnight from warmly discussing alliance with Lady Baratheon to denying her entirely. A queer affair indeed."

 _Oh, Lysa._ Catelyn knew exactly what had happened. Her poor sister had been half-mad with grief and fear already when she last had spoken to her. Lysa must have been torn between her obsessive love for her son, the spoilt sickly little boy to whose faults she had blinded herself, and her desire to protect him. She had wanted him to be king, then, when something reminded her that if so he would have to leave the Eyrie, she had snatched him away like a small child with a toy it refused to relinquish.

Nonetheless, she said, "That is grave news indeed, my lord of Berryhill." _Cersei Lannister is laughing herself breathless!_ If Lords Renly and Stannis were fighting each other, the Lannisters would have free rein to wield all their ill-gotten power against her son. And Lord Renly would come; Catelyn had no doubt of that. Not because he needed to defend his seat, though he would surely claim that as his motivation. Nor because of any insult to his honour. No, it would be because of exactly what Lord Renly had told her. He had no desire to stop the conflict between Houses Stark and Lannister if both refused to bow to him. Far better for him to let them slay each other's men and burn each other's fields and weaken each other enough for one side to accept his overlordship or, failing that, for him to swoop in and destroy them both, needing scarcely to lift a finger. Poor, foolish Lord Stannis, who for all his determination and his prowess in battle at sea was not wise in the ways of men, had given him the perfect excuse to do what he wanted: to fight another war and delay his assault on King's Landing, abandoning Houses Tully and Stark to fight the Lannisters alone. And Lord Stannis would lose; she had no doubt of that either. Lord Stannis might have expected to face only a small part of Lord Renly's strength, which he could perhaps defeat if he were bold and clever, while the rest of the great host headed for King's Landing, but Lord Renly would give him no such chance; he would come to Storm's End with all his strength and shatter Lord Stannis's army before heading back, as slowly as possible, towards the capital.

"It is," said Lord Berryhill. "Lord Stannis is a madman. He would have done better to swear fealty to his royal brother and accept his overlordship; then he could have kept Dragonstone and perhaps even gained Storm's End if the king were generous. Instead he is about to die. Nonetheless, I suppose it couldn't be avoided. The man's stubborn enough to put an ox to shame—" abruptly she recalled that Lord Berryhill had probably served under Lord Tyrell as the Reachmen besieged Storm's End— "and he has a peacock's pride. He believes himself better than the other men in the realm calling themselves kings because by law he is King Robert's rightful heir."

"How so? Joffrey is King Robert's rightful heir, and Prince Tommen after him. That is the law. Lord Stannis is no less a traitor to the lawful king than his brother or my son, no matter how good our reasons."

"You—" Lord Berryhill seemed honestly shocked. "You haven't heard?"

"I haven't heard what, my lord?"

He scarcely seemed to register the question. "But the first ones arrived more than two moons past… but of course; you must have left Riverrun before then, and no man told you because they all thought you already knew…"

"What is it that I should know, my lord?" Catelyn snapped.

That broke him from his reverie. "Forgive me, my lady of Stark. You shocked me; 'tis all. More than two moons gone, ravens flew from Dragonstone to every great castle in the Seven Kingdoms, all bearing copies of the same letter under the sign and seal of Lord Stannis. Ships soon bore more such letters across the Narrow Sea coast, from the Wall to the Arbour. He claims the queen lay with the Kingslayer. He swears by the honour of House Baratheon that Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella are Jaime Lannister's get, bastards born of cuckoldry. 'Tis a self-serving lie of course, as Stannis can only be the rightful heir if the old king had no trueborn son."

Catelyn's mind reeled. _Would even Cersei be so mad?_ But she was remembering, fitting pieces together.

"Lord Arryn served as Hand of the King for more than a decade, and for all that time his office had not been filled by a Lannister," Catelyn said slowly. "If it were truly about the power and position of House Lannister, why poison Lord Arryn when they did—for they did; his own lady wife, my sister, fled the city when it happened and sent us a raven accusing the Lannisters of murder—and not a decade earlier and have Lord Tywin take up the position? Why kill my Ned instead of sending him to Winterfell or to the Wall, which may not have provoked such hideous war? That deed did not aid the position of House Lannister; with the Imp free and Joffrey as king, they could have ended their war against House Tully and gained a stable realm with Joffrey at the head of it and Cersei as his regent. Why commit the sins they have committed, if not for a truth the queen could not allow Jon Arryn or Ned to speak? And there is a blacker deed still, my lord of Berryhill. The Lannisters tried to kill my son Bran. He loved climbing, and had a talent for it; he never fell before. After he fell from a window and nearly died while King Robert was at Winterfell, the Imp sent a man to open his throat with a dagger of Valyrian steel."

She uncurled her fingers, showing him the deep scars upon them. Sharply, Lord Berryhill drew in breath.

"A thousand times I have asked myself why, and now I know the answer. There was a hunt the day he fell. Robert and Ned and most of the other men rode out after boar, but Jaime Lannister remained behind, as did the queen." She almost choked with hate. "That must be why he fell, and why they tried to kill him afterwards. Like his father, they tried to take his life because of what he had seen."

Lord Berryhill looked worried. "I fear you fit what you have seen to your idea, not your idea to what you have seen. 'Tis a tale too fine to be believed. Yes, Joffrey is surely an evil king, but there have been many evil rightful kings, my lady. Aegon the Unlikely was as poor a king as the realm has known since the King Aegon before him, yet his son was good Jaehaerys, great bane of the Blackfyres… and yet _his_ son was Mad King Aerys. Joffrey does not need to be the Kingslayer's get to be a monster."

"And yet the Kingslayer's get he is," Catelyn said. "The truth is clear. I am sure of it." But anguish dwelt in her heart. Lord Stannis would never know that there was proof of his purported incest, and Lord Renly might not either. The enemies of House Lannister needed unity but they would not have it. The Baratheon brothers would fight, and one of them and many of their sworn men-at-arms would die, while the Lannisters mocked the gods and gloried in the victory of their sin. Lord Renly and his host had surely begun on their way to Storm's End already. If she attempted to reach there to negotiate a peace, she would only arrive after the battle was done.

 _Unless… of course._ Lord Renly had an army. Armies moved slowly, for they needed not only swift mounted knights but also hosts of men on foot and draft horses and cumbersome wagons loaded with food and other supplies. She was already more than a week's ride away from Bitterbridge, in the wrong direction from Storm's End, but a swift party of riders with good horses could outpace an army with ease. She tried to picture the map in her head. It would be a long ride, and tiring, and inconvenient, but perhaps it could be done. It might take two and a half or three moons for Lord Renly's host to reach Storm's End, though likely not as many as four, and she and her guards ahorse might just reach House Baratheon's ancestral fortress in two moons. It was mad and, in all probability, a fool's hope, but a fool's hope was better than hopelessness.

Catelyn rose. "My lord," she said with a curtsy, "I thank you sincerely for your hospitality, but I needs must ride to the side of your king, with all possible haste. The line between victory and defeat against the Lannisters may depend on it."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Stannis has laid siege to Storm's End; he travelled there straight after he received word from Selyse of Lysa's refusal (he expected that Lysa would refuse, as shown in the chapter from Davos's point of view, though he didn't commit to a Storm's-End-first strategy just in case she accepted). But he arrived there later than he did in canon, as a result. This is the sort of thing I mean when I talk about how information can matter even if it's false information; some characters have acted while under the impression that the Vale was going to march for Stannis, so, even though it eventually didn't happen, the belief is important.


	7. Chapter 7

**TYRION**

Tyrion cursed the heat, so strong it was as if the sun had not realised that summer was ending. The sea breeze was mild outside the Dragon Gate, which faced northward onto the kingsroad, and it was hot, wet and stuffy. It was unpleasant enough to have to stand outside in it in his finely made clothes, today of red and purple silk. It must be far worse to be the poor bastards of the City Watch, arrayed in gleaming armour which they must be roasting in. Nevertheless, none of the city's people wanted to miss this moment, and it would be unwise for him.

As the rays of the sun beat down on Tyrion, the thumping sounds of feet, disordered, in break-step, were heard on the horizon. There was a cheer from the watching townsfolk as the first red-cloaked horsemen appeared over the lip of the land. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the distant dots crawled towards King's Landing. It was like watching a great serpent of song and tale emerging from the water: first men saw the vanguard, and then more men stretching further back on the kingsroad, and further, and further.

It felt like a hundred years later when Ser Kevan Lannister and many of his lord brother's most puissant lords bannermen, escorted by grim-faced knights and Lannister guardsmen in lion halfhelms, reached the Dragon Gate. Behind them, stretching so far that the furthest of them were still beyond the horizon, marched what Tyrion knew to be an army of four-thousand men. Ser Jacelyn Bywater gave a sharp gesture with his iron hand and the gold cloaks snapped to attention, saluting the man who would be their new master.

The Lannister army had brought with it some of the produce that Lord Tywin had foraged from the riverlands. As Ser Kevan and his highborn escort passed, wagons of meat, grain, fruit and vegetables were unloaded and eagerly sold to the amassed butchers, millers and grocers of the city. At that price, the noble lords of the west bought the cheers of the townsfolk as they passed in their glittering ranks, on their way to the children of their liege.

Standing with Tyrion, Cersei was dressed resplendently in a gown of black and gold, the colours of House Baratheon, with a red-dyed ermine mantle and a necklace of large pearls. Tommen and Myrcella stood on either side of her. Joffrey, dressed in the same colours, was nearby, with his Kingsguard behind him and Sansa Stark, looking pale and tremulous, at his side. The queen lifted her swanlike neck and gave her son a pointed look, as it was his duty to speak first.

"My lord great-uncle," Joffrey recited, "it pleases me to welcome you to my city." He had, at least, been persuaded to remember that much.

Ser Kevan dismounted and knelt before the king. "Your Grace, I am yours to command." He nodded his head to his niece and nephew. "Your Grace, my lord Hand."

"My lord uncle," Cersei replied sweetly, "it lightens my heart to know of your presence. Henceforth, as Queen Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, in the name of His Grace Joffrey of the House Baratheon, the First of His Name, I call upon you to serve His Grace the King as Lord Marshal of the Defenders of King's Landing."

"I am honoured, Your Grace," Kevan said. One of her serving maids passed Cersei an ancient-looking baton of ebony, ruby and dark steel, though Tyrion knew for a fact that the black-and-red colouring of House Targaryen was to further a deception, the rubies were red-stained glass and it had been made by a smith named Harry on the Street of Steel last week.

Cersei solemnly presented the baton to her uncle, who accepted it while still on his knees, as the crowd cheered. They scarcely knew Ser Kevan, but the coming of food made him a popular man, even if it were too little to sate the city's hunger for longer than a week or two.

"Come," Tyrion said. "Let your men to their quarters, and let the king's council discuss the burdens of the realm."

After this elaborate mummers' farce of family unity, there was a similar farce as the High Septon blessed the coming army and wished them the strength of the Warrior to protect the innocent and do the Father's justice. Then, protected by the shining ranks of men-at-arms in cloaks of red and cloaks of gold, Tyrion, Cersei and Kevan mounted horses and headed into the Red Keep, watched constantly by the townsfolk. As they passed the castle gate, and furthermore the gate of Maegor's Holdfast, gold cloaks and red-cloaked Lannister men stood to attention and saluted. With four-thousand men under his command, far superior to the other defenders of the city in both quality and numbers, there was no doubt that Ser Kevan would have led the city's defences in fact no matter whether he had been granted any such title in name.

His niece and nephew led Kevan to a private chamber, cooled by the sea wind, where Tyrion collapsed onto on a comfortable chair with a relieved groan. "How goes the war to the north?" Cersei asked at once. "Father refused to tell me almost anything by raven."

"It is not your lord father's wont that plans of battle be entrusted to such easily slain couriers," Kevan admonished, "as well you know. I am here because the news of Lord Celtigar, Lord Velaryon and Lady Baratheon in the Eyrie made his plans change."

"Even after he received the news about Lord Stannis at Storm's End?" Tyrion said with a raised eyebrow, leaning forward. "How so?"

"Even so," said Kevan. "My lord brother hoped to use the fullness of his strength to crush the Stark boy in the lands of the Trident before moving southward to slay Lord Renly. The news of the Vale's entry to the war made such a plan unfeasible. He and his war council discussed the matter at length, and he no longer believes it wise to attempt a short victorious war in the riverlands. Instead we favour a more conservative strategy. We have made a strong defensive line from Harrenhal as far east as Maidenpool and south along the west coast of the God's Eye and then along the river Mudwash to the Blackwater. The Mudwash and the Blackwater will serve well as our defences. We have an advantage in any battle where we hold a great river, difficult to ford, and the enemy seeks to cross it. The northern line is more challenging, but there are good castles in those lands. If well manned, they can be well defended. Stark's victory at Riverrun made untenable our hope of a corridor to the west, but unless he strips the riverlands bare before us he has not the strength to take Lannisport or Casterly Rock, and the Golden Tooth is nigh impassable, so he'd be a fool to campaign against the westerlands. We can sit on the defensive and he has little choice but to attack us, for he claims sovereignty over the riverlords and cannot rest if a great part of their lands are under our power."

"So he has to come to you in a manner of your choosing, else discard his pretension to be King of the Trident," Tyrion murmured.

"Indeed so. You have heard, I hope, that one man on a wall is worth many men beneath it. My lord brother needs fewer men to defend Harrenhal, even when defending other castles to the east and the rivers Mudwash and Blackwater as well, than to maintain a roving force strong enough to overwhelm Bolton's army or Stark's. But our plan requires time for Stark to grow desperate and impatient to throw us from the riverlands, time we may not have if Lord Renly or Lord Stannis comes too quickly to this city. I was sent here because my lord brother no longer believes it likely that his own host will be free to move to defend King's Landing if the royal fleet sails from Dragonstone or a rebel army from the south approaches. And if either of the Baratheon brothers takes this city, the two of you will die, and so will the king and his brother and sister."

"I see," Cersei said in a tone which implied that she would rather not. "So father expects us to hold the city without any further aid?"

Kevan did not seem impressed by the question. "Yes."

Tyrion was devoutly glad that he hadn't told his lord father the latest news of Lord Renly's movements. All had expected him to keep marching to the capital, or else to separate his army and leave part of it to march to the capital while a detachment headed east to break the siege of Storm's End that had been laid by Lord Stannis. But Varys had been informed that Lord Renly, in his impatience to get to grips with his brother, was racing eastward with almost the whole of his mounted strength, leaving his colossal host of foot in Bitterbridge, not even moving towards the city any more as they awaited their king's confrontation with his elder brother. If Lord Tywin Lannister knew that it would be several moons before King's Landing could be besieged, he would probably have recalled Kevan and his four-thousand men.

"I am very glad of your presence, my lord uncle," Tyrion said politely, "for you are sorely needed here. The gold cloaks are as green as they are corrupt and as corrupt as they are incapable. Ser Jacelyn Bywater is a good man, but if one plants a rose atop a heap of manure it will not swiftly turn into roses. Their skill and discipline could profit greatly from the command and training you and your veteran soldiers have to offer."

"I will see it done," Kevan said.

They spoke further about the defences of the city and the quarters of Ser Kevan's troops. As he waddled out, Tyrion reflected, _That has been a most profitable meeting._ Kevan Lannister may not have been sent to take sides between the Hand and the Queen Regent, but he could scarce avoid it, having been sent into the midst of that struggle, and he seemed to hold a higher opinion of the Hand. Tyrion could use that. With the gold cloaks outnumbered and outclassed by Ser Kevan's men, he led the most formidable armed force in the city. Tyrion would have to speak with him again, and frequently. Such an ally would be invaluable.

Tyrion was studying a report from Varys's whisperers in the evening of the next day when he heard a knock on the door.

"You'll want to hear this," called Bronn, with his usual disregard for courtesy and titles. "I've news from Spilbroke."

 _Spilbroke?_ Tyrion had almost forgotten the name. It took him a moment to recall that little crownlander castle and Littlefinger's strange interest there. He looked up. "Come in."

The sellsword walked into the room, clad in his new respectable attire. He could have been mistaken for a captain of Lord Tywin's men-at-arms. "We've figured out what Littlefinger was doing there," Bronn said without further ado.

"And what is it?" Tyrion's interest was piqued.

"Giving him gold," Bronn said. " _Lots_ of gold. Old Lord Spilbroke has been careful not to display too much of it, but his wife has been dressing in especially fine silks lately and we found a serving boy who said he's been creeping down to a wine-cellar where he's got a hoard. From what the boy said, it's several thousand dragons."

"'Tis a paltry sum compared to what the master of coin has at his disposal, but to a backcountry lord a step up from a landed knight, out in the provinces, it must look like a fortune. But a sum outside the master of coin's accounts," Tyrion mused aloud, "which are meticulous and name the course of every penny." He had sent out men to check various of Petyr Baelish's written transactions and he had not found a single one which had been deceitfully recorded. Moreover, his sums never seemed to add up to the wrong amount given the actual content of the royal treasury. "Littlefinger must have loaned some of the king's money again, put it to work, got it back, but taken the interest for himself this time. He's too clever to get easily caught by embezzling from the royal treasury, when every man jack in his employ would betray him to the crown in an instant if they noticed anything and thought it would win them a better job and more gold."

Tyrion shook his head. "But this is a distraction. So tell me, Bronn… what could a man as rich and powerful as Littlefinger possibly be getting from a far-off provincial lord like Spilbroke? What is Spilbroke doing for Littlefinger in return for all that gold? And how could it possibly be so important that Littlefinger had to absent himself from the city, the centre of power of the Seven Kingdoms where he's built up his strength and his voice whispers in the ears of the mighty, for near three weeks, and go to such amazingly sophisticated lengths to hide his movements, just to stay in Spilbroke?"

"You think I know?" Bronn asked incredulously.

"Of course not," Tyrion said with irritation. "But have you heard of anything else that may be of interest in Spilbroke? Could there be anyone more important than Lord Spilbroke who visited while Littlefinger was there?"

Bronn shook his head. "You heard about the chattering servants. Spilbroke's far less airtight than Littlefinger's men in this city. No-one else was seen, just Littlefinger. It wasn't a meeting."

"Then what was it?" Before Bronn could reply, Tyrion, who had been growing tired of his insolence, said, "I need not your counsel now. Begone, and I will think on it."


	8. Chapter 8

**ARYA**

Arya had thought that there might be less work, or more, now that Lord Tywin's vast army had left Harrenhal. There wasn't. The work sank from the backbreaking high of the time just before the army had left, but only back to its old level. The castle seemed no different to before. Perhaps only the parts of the army stationed in the other towers had gone away. She dared not ask about it, though. Weese might interpret that as reluctance to work, and he was cruel when it came to that.

The great host had only left about a week ago when another raven from Lord Tywin's children reached him in the castle. Lord Stannis had besieged Storm's End, the seat of Lord Renly. Some men seemed to think Lord Tywin should recall the army, though he didn't, but others of their mutterings included the name Selyse. That always brought Arya's attention. It was days after that when a third one arrived. "'Tis all as you'd expect," she heard one knight tell another at a table she was serving. "Lady Arryn rejected Lady Selyse's appeal and sent her back to Dragonstone empty-handed. It had to be so, or else Lord Stannis wouldn't have attacked Lord Renly, he would have taken command of his army in the Vale."

That news, more than anything, took heart from Arya. She knew the Vale of Arryn was near Harrenhal, far nearer than the north was, and she had fancied that Selyse Baratheon—who it appeared was Lord Stannis's wife, not a queen in her own right—would come with her aunt to save her. Certainly the Lannisters had seemed afraid of her. Now that had been taken away, and Lord Stannis had to fight Lord Renly for some reason. She didn't know much about either Stannis or Renly, but she did know that the Lannisters liked neither of them, so why would they fight each other? She had thought she was going to be rescued soon, but now she thought that if Lord Tywin won she might be here forever, and never see mother again.

Many days after the great army had left—a week, or a fortnight, or a moon, she had little idea—the queerest company of men she'd ever seen arrived at Harrenhal. Beneath the standard of a black goat with bloody horns rode copper men with bells in their braids; lancers astride striped black-and-white horses; bowmen with powdered cheeks; squat hairy men with shaggy shields; brown-skinned men in feathered cloaks; a wispy fool in green-and-pink motley; swordsmen with fantastic forked beards dyed green and purple and silver; spearmen with coloured scars that covered their cheeks; a slender man in septon's robes, a fatherly one in maester's grey, and a sickly one whose leather cloak was fringed with long blond hair.

At their head was a man stick-thin and very tall, with a drawn emaciated face made even longer by the ropy black beard that grew from his pointed chin nearly to his waist. The helm that hung from his saddle horn was black steel, fashioned in the shape of a goat's head. About his neck he wore a chain made of linked coins of many different sizes, shapes, and metals, and his horse was one of the strange black-and-white ones.

"You don't want to know that lot, Weasel," Weese said when he saw her looking at the goat-helmed man. Two of his drinking friends were with him, men-at-arms in service to Lord Lefford.

"Who are they?" she asked.

One of the soldiers laughed. "The Footmen, girl. Toes of the Goat. Lord Tywin's Bloody Mummers."

"Pease for wits. You get her flayed, _you_ can scrub the bloody steps," said Weese. "They're sellswords, Weasel girl. Call themselves the Brave Companions. Don't use them other names where they can hear, or they'll hurt you bad. The goat-helm's their captain, Lord Vargo Hoat."

"He's no fucking lord," said the second soldier. "I heard Ser Amory say so. He's just some sellsword with a mouth full of slobber and a high opinion of hisself."

"Aye," said Weese, "but she better _call_ him lord if she wants keep all her parts."

Arya looked at Vargo Hoat again. _How many monsters does Lord Tywin have?_ Finally she dared to ask her question: "Why are there so many soldiers here, after Lord Tywin's army left?"

"Left?" The second soldier laughed. "That ain't no army, that's a detachment. That was Ser Kevan Lannister who left, Lord Tywin's brother, and he had only one in five of Lord Tywin's men. Most of us are still here."

 _One in five?_ Arya was horrified. It had been the largest gathering of soldiers she had ever seen at the same place at the same time, with men and wagons and horses filling the earth and banners filling the air, stretching far in all directions. How could it be that they were only one in five?

Over time, though, the army did reduce noticeably. Companies of men—which looked large to Arya but which she was told were only a few hundred each—rode out from Harrenhal in various directions. There were still plenty of men left in the castle, but she was sure the small departures had diminished Lord Tywin's army more than Ser Kevan's great host had.

The Brave Companions were housed in the Widow's Tower, so Arya need not serve them. She was glad of that; on the very night they arrived, fighting broke out between the sellswords and some Lannister men. Ser Harys Swyft's squire was stabbed to death and two of the Bloody Mummers were wounded. The next morning Lord Tywin hanged them both from the gatehouse walls, along with one of Lord Lydden's archers. Weese said the archer had started all the trouble by taunting the sellswords over Beric Dondarrion. After the hanged men had stopped kicking, Vargo Hoat and Ser Harys embraced and kissed and swore to love each other always as Lord Tywin looked on. Arya thought it was funny the way Vargo Hoat lisped and slobbered, but she knew better than to laugh.

The Bloody Mummers did not linger long at Harrenhal, but before they rode out again, Arya heard one of them saying how a northern army under Roose Bolton had occupied the ruby ford of the Trident. "If he crosses, Lord Tywin will smash him again like he did on the Green Fork," a Lannister bowman said, but his fellows jeered him down. "Bolton'll never cross, not till the Young Wolf marches from Riverrun with his wild northmen and all them wolves."

Arya had not known her brother was so near. Riverrun was much closer than Winterfell, though she was not certain where it lay in relation to Harrenhal. _I could find it somehow, I know I could, if only I could get away._ When she thought of seeing Robb's face again Arya had to bite her lip. _And I want to see Jon too, and Bran and Rickon, and mother. Even Sansa… I'll kiss her and beg her pardons like a proper lady, she'll like that._

The news of Lord Bolton's arrival made a shudder run through the castle. Lord Tywin had been expecting an attack across the Trident into the parts of the riverlands that he held, and the attackers were near. But for all that the servants and the men-at-arms muttered about impending sieges, it didn't come. Apparently Bolton's northmen were content to wait.

From the courtyard talk she'd learnt that the upper chambers of the Tower of Dread housed three dozen captives taken during some battle on the Green Fork of the Trident. Most had been given freedom of the castle in return for their pledge not to attempt escape. _They vowed not to escape_ , Arya told herself, _but they never swore not to help_ me _escape._

The captives ate at their own table in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths, and could often be seen about the grounds. Four brothers took their exercise together every day, fighting with staves and wooden shields in the Flowstone Yard. Three of them were Freys of the Crossing, the fourth their bastard brother. They were there only a short time, though; one morning two other brothers arrived under a peace banner with a chest of gold, and ransomed them from the knights who'd captured them. The six Freys all left together.

No-one ransomed the northmen, though. One fat lordling haunted the kitchens, Hot Pie told her, always looking for a morsel. His moustache was so bushy that it covered his mouth, and the clasp that held his cloak was a silver-and-sapphire trident. He belonged to Lord Tywin, but the fierce, bearded young man who liked to walk the battlements alone in a black cloak patterned with white suns had been taken by some hedge knight who meant to get rich off him. Sansa would have known who he was, and the fat one too, but Arya had never taken much interest in titles and sigils. Whenever Septa Mordane had gone on about the history of this house and that house, she was inclined to drift and dream and wonder when the lesson would be done.

She _did_ remember Lord Cerwyn, though. His lands had been close to Winterfell, so he and his only son Cley had often visited. Yet as fate would have it, he was the only captive who was never seen; he was abed in a tower cell, recovering from a wound. For days and days Arya tried to work out how she might steal past the door guards to see him. If he knew her, he would be honour-bound to help her. A lord would have gold for certainty, they all did; perhaps he would pay some of Lord Tywin's own sellswords to take her to Riverrun. Father had always said that most sellswords would betray anyone for enough gold.

Then one morning she spied three women in the cowled grey robes of the silent sisters loading a corpse into their wagon. The body was sewn into a cloak of the finest silk, decorated with a battleaxe sigil. When Arya asked who it was, one of the guards told her that Lord Cerwyn had died. The words felt like a kick in the belly. _He could never have helped you anyway_ , she thought as the sisters drove the wagon through the gate. _He couldn't even help himself, you stupid mouse._

Still, her own reassurances did little to help her. Every time there was good news, someone took it away from her. She would almost have preferred not to know anything about the war, rather than have moments of hope only to lose them all over again.

After that it was back to scrubbing and scurrying and listening at doors. Lord Tywin would soon march on Riverrun, she heard. Or he would drive south to Highgarden, no one would ever expect that. No, he must defend King's Landing, Stannis was the greatest threat. He'd sent Gregor Clegane and Vargo Hoat to destroy Roose Bolton and remove the dagger from his back. He'd sent ravens to the Eyrie, he meant to wed the Lady Lysa Arryn and win the Vale. (Arya doubted that one; she didn't think the Lady Lysa Arryn would stir from the Eyrie for _anybody_.) He'd bought a tonne of silver to forge magic swords that would slay the Stark wargs. He was writing Lady Stark to make a peace, the Kingslayer would soon be freed.

Though ravens came and went every day, not just the important ones that people whispered about, Lord Tywin himself spent most of his days behind closed doors with his war council. Arya caught glimpses of him, but always from afar—once walking the walls in the company of three maesters and the fat captive with the bushy moustache, once riding out with his lords bannermen to visit the encampments, but most often standing in an arch of the covered gallery watching men at practice in the yard below. He stood with his hands locked together on the gold pommel of his longsword. They said Lord Tywin loved gold most of all; he even _shit_ gold, she heard one squire jest. The Lannister lord was strong-looking for an old man, with stiff golden whiskers and a bald head. There was something in his face that reminded Arya of her own father, even though they looked nothing alike. _He has a lord's face, that's all_ , she told herself. She remembered hearing her lady mother tell father to put on his lord's face and go deal with some matter. Father had laughed at that. She could not imagine Lord Tywin ever laughing at anything.

One afternoon, while she was waiting her turn to draw a pail of water from the well, she heard the hinges of the east gate groaning. A party of men rode under the portcullis at a walk. When she spied the manticore crawling across the shield of their leader, a stab of hate shot through her.

In the light of day, Ser Amory Lorch looked less frightening than he had by torchlight, but he still had the pig's eyes she recalled. One of the women said that his men had ridden all the way around the lake chasing Beric Dondarrion and slaying rebels. _We weren't rebels_ , Arya thought. _We were the Night's Watch, the Night's Watch takes no side._ Ser Amory had fewer men than she remembered, though, and many wounded. _I hope their wounds fester. I hope they all die._

Then she saw the three near the end of the column.

Rorge had donned a black halfhelm with a broad iron nasal that made it hard to se that he did not have a nose. Biter rode ponderously beside him on a destrier that looked ready to collapse under his weight. Half-healed burns covered his body, making him even more hideous than before.

But Jaqen H'ghar still smiled. His garb was still ragged and filthy, but he had found time to wash and brush his hair. It streamed across his shoulders, red and white and shiny, and Arya heard the girls giggling to each other in admiration.

 _I should have let the fire have them. Gendry said to, I should have listened._ If she hadn't thrown them that axe they'd all be dead. For a moment she was afraid, but they rode past her without a flicker of interest. Only Jaqen H'ghar so much as glanced in her direction, and his eyes passed right over her. _He does not know me_ , she thought. _Arry was a fierce little boy with a sword, and I'm just a grey mouse girl with a pail._

She spent the rest of that day scrubbing steps inside the Wailing Tower. By evenfall her hands were raw and bleeding and her arms so sore they trembled when she lugged the pail back to the cellar. Too tired even for food, Arya begged Weese's pardons and crawled into her straw to sleep. "Weese," she yawned. "Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei." She thought she might add three more names to her prayer, but she was too tired to decide tonight.

Arya was dreaming of wolves running wild through the wood when a strong hand clamped down over her mouth like smooth warm stone, solid and unyielding. She woke at once, squirming and struggling. "A girl says nothing," a voice whispered close behind her ear. "A girl keeps her lips closed, no-one hears, and friends may talk in secret. Yes?"

Heart pounding, Arya managed the tiniest of nods.

Jaqen H'ghar took his hand away. The cellar was black as pitch and she could not see his face, even inches awy. She could _smell_ him, though; his skin smelt clean and soapy, and he had scented his hair. "A boy becomes a girl," he murmured.

"I was _always_ a girl. I didn't think you saw me."

"A man sees. A man knows."

She remembered that she hated him. "You scared me. You're one of _them_ now, I should have let you burn. What are you doing here? Go away or I'll yell for Weese."

"A man pays his debts. A man owes three."

"Three?"

"The Red God has his due, sweet girl, and only death may pay for life. This girl took three that were his. This girl must give three in their places. Speak the names, and a man will do the rest."

 _He wants to help me_ , Arya realised with a rush of hope that made her dizzy. "Take me to Riverrun, it's not far, if we stole some horses we could—"

He laid a finger on her lips. "Three lives you shall have of me. No more, no less. Three and we are done. So a girl must ponder." He kissed her hair softly. "But not too long."

By the time Arya lit her stub of a candle, only a faint smell remained of him, a whiff of ginger and cloves lingering in the air. The woman in the next niche rolled over on her straw and complained of the light, so Arya blew it out. When she closed her eyes, she saw faces swimming before her. Joffrey and his mother, Ilyn Payne and Meryn Trant and Sandor Clegane… but they were in King's Landing hundreds of miles away, and Ser Gregor had lingered only a few nights before departing again for more foraging, taking Raff and Chiswyck and the Tickler with him. Ser Amory Lorch was here, though, and she hated him almost as much. Didn't she? She wasn't certain. And there was always Weese.

She thought of him again the next morning, when lack of sleep made her yawn. "Weasel," Weese purred, "next time I see that mouth droop open, I'll pull out your tongue and feed it to my bitch." He twisted her ear between his fingers to make certain she'd heard, and told her to get back to those steps, he wanted them clean down to the third landing by nightfall.

As she worked, Arya thought about the people she wanted dead. She pretended she could see their faces on the steps, and scrubbed harder to wipe them away. The Starks were at war with the Lannisters and she was a Stark, so she should kill as many Lannisters as she could, that was what you did in wars. But she didn't think she could trust Jaqen. _I should kill them myself._ Whenever her father had condemned a man to death, he did the deed himself with Ice, his greatsword. "If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look him in the face and hear his last words," she'd heard him tell Robb and Jon once.

The next day she avoided Jaqen H'ghar, and the day after that. It was not hard. She was very small and Harrenhal was very large, full of places where a mouse could hide.

And then Ser Gregor returned, earlier than expected, driving a herd of goats this time in place of a herd of prisoners. She heard he'd lost four men in one of Lord Beric's night raids, but those Arya hated returned unscathed and took up residence on the second floor of the Wailing Tower. Weese saw that they were well supplied with drink. "They always have a good thirst, that lot," he grumbled. "Weasel, go up and ask if they've got any clothes that need mending, I'll have the women see to it."

Arya ran up her well-scrubbed steps. No-one paid her any mind when she entered. Chiswyck was seated by the fire with a horn of ale to hand, telling one of his funny stories. She dared not interrupt, unless she wanted a bloody lip.

"After the Hand's tourney, it were, before the war come," Chiswyck was saying. "We were on our ways back west, seven of us with Ser Gregor. Raff was with me, and young Joss Stilwood, he'd squired for Ser in the lists. Well, we come on this pisswater river, running high on account there'd been rains. No way to ford, but there's an alehouse near, so there we repair. Ser rousts the brewer and tells him to keep our horns full till the waters fall, and you should see the man's pig eyes shine at the sight o' silver. So he's fetching us ale, him and his daughter, and poor thin stuff it is, no more'n brown piss, which don't make me any happier, nor Ser neither. And all the time this brewer's saying how glad he is to have us, custom being slow on account o' them rains. The fool won't shut his yap, not him, though Ser is saying not a word, just brooding on the Knight o' Pansies and that bugger's trick he played. You can see how tight his mouth sits, so me and the other lads we know better'n to say a squeak to him, but this brewer he's got to talk, he even asks how m'lord fared in the jousting. Ser just gave him this look." Chiswyck cackled, quaffed his ale, and wiped the foam away with the back of his hand. "Meanwhile, this daughter of his has been fetching and pouring, a fat little thing, eighteen or so—"

"Thirteen, more like," Raff the Sweetling drawled.

"Well, be that as it may, she's not much to look at, but Eggon's been drinking and gets to touching her, and might be I did a little touching meself, and Raff's telling young Stilwood that he ought t'drag the girl upstairs and make hisself a man, giving the lad courage as it were. Finally Joss reaches up under her skirt, and she shrieks and drops her flagon and goes running off to the kitchen. Well, it would have ended right there, only what does the old fool do but he goes to _Ser_ and asks him to make us leave the girl alone, him being an anointed knight and all such.

"Ser Gregor, he wasn't paying no mind to none of our fun, but now he _looks_ , you know how he does, and he commands that the girl be brought before him. Now the old man has to drag her out of the kitchen, and no-one to blame but hisself. Ser looks her over and says, 'So this is the whore you're so concerned for,' and this besotted old fool says, 'My Layna's no whore, ser' right to Gregor's face. Ser, he never blinks, just says, 'She is now,' tosses the old man another silver, rips the dress off the wench and takes her right there on the table in front of her da, her flopping and wiggling like a rabbit and making these noises. The look on the old man's face, I laughed so hard ale was coming out me nose. Then this boy hears the noise, the son I figure, and comes rushing up from the cellar, so Raff has to stick a dirk in his belly. By then, Ser's done, so he goes back to his drinking and we all have a turn. Tobbot, you know how he is, he flops her over and goes in the back way. The girl was done fighting by the time I had her, maybe she'd decided she liked it after all, though to tell the truth I wouldn't have minded a little wiggling. And now here's the best bit… when it's all done, Ser tells the old man that he wants his change. The girl wasn't worth a silver, he says… and damned if that old man didn't fetch a fistful of coppers, beg m'lord's pardon, and _thank him for the custom_!"

The men all roared, none louder than Chiswyck himself, who laughed so hard at his own story that snot dribbled from his nose down into his scraggy grey beard. Arya stood in the shadows of the stairwell and watched him. She crept back down to the cellars without saying a word. When Weese found that she hadn't asked about the clothes, he yanked down her breeches and caned her until blood ran down her thighs, but Arya closed her eyes and thought of all the sayings Syrio had taught her, so she scarcely felt it.

Two nights later, he sent her to the Barracks Hall to serve at table. She was carrying a flagon of wine and pouring when she glimpsed Jaqen H'ghar at his trencher across the aisle. Chewing her lip, Arya glanced around warily to make certain Weese was not in sight. _Fear cuts deeper than swords_ , she told herself.

She took a step, and another, and with each she felt less a mouse. She worked her way down the bench, filling wine cups. Rorge sat to Jaqen's right, deep drunk, but he took no note of her. Arya leant close and whispered, "Chiswyck," right in Jaqen's ear. The Lorathi gave no sign that he had heard.

When her flagon was empty, Arya hurried down to the cellars to refill it from the cask, and quickly returned to her pouring. No-one had died of thirst while she was gone, nor even noted her brief absence.

Nothing happened the next day, nor the day after, but on the third day Arya went to the kitchens with Weese to fetch their dinner. "One of the Mountain's men fell off a wallwalk last night and broke his fool neck," she heard Weese tell a cook.

"Drunk?" the woman asked.

"No more'n usual. Some are saying it was Harren's ghost flung him down." He snorted to show what _he_ thought of such notions.

 _It wasn't Harren_ , Arya wanted to say, _it was me._ She had killed Chiswyck with a whisper, and she would kill two more before she was through. _I'm the ghost in Harrenhal_ , she thought. And that night, there was one less name to hate.


	9. Chapter 9

**SANSA**

"The longer you keep him waiting, the worse it will go for you," Sandor Clegane warned her.

Sansa tried to hurry, but her fingers fumbled at buttons and knots. The Hound was always rough-tongued, but something in the way he had looked at her filled her with dread. Had Joffrey found out about her meetings with Ser Dontos? _Please no_ , she thought as she brushed out her hair. Ser Dontos was her only hope. _I have to look pretty, Joff likes me to look pretty, he's always liked me in this gown, this colour._ She smoothed the cloth down. The fabric was tight across her chest.

When she emerged, Sansa walked on the Hound's left, away from the burnt side of his face. "Tell me what I've done."

"Not you. Your kingly brother."

"Robb's a traitor." Sansa knew the words by rote. "I had no part in whatever he did." _Gods be good, don't let it be the Kingslayer._ If Robb had harmed Jaime Lannister, it would mean her life. She thought of Ser Ilyn, and how those terrible pale eyes stared pitilessly out of that gaunt pockmarked face.

The Hound snorted. "They trained you well, little bird." He conducted her to the lower bailey, where a crowd had gathered around the archery butts. Men moved aside to let them through. She could hear Lord Gyles coughing. Loitering stablehands eyed her insolently, but Ser Horas Redwyne averted his gaze as she passed, and his brother Hobber pretended not to see her. Some of Ser Kevan Lannister's knights and men-at-arms were present, tall hard men in red, many of them scarred. They watched her impassively. A yellow cat was dying on the ground, mewling piteously, a crossbow quarrel through its ribs. Sansa stepped around it, feeling ill.

Ser Dontos approached on his broomstick horse; since he'd been too drunk to mount his destrier at the tourney, the king had decreed that henceforth he must always go horsed. "Be brave," he whispered, squeezing her arm.

Joffrey stood in the centre of the throng, winding an ornate crossbow. Ser Boros and Ser Meryn were with him. The sight of them was enough to tie her insides in knots.

"Your Grace." She fell to her knees.

"Kneeling won't save you now," the king said. "Stand up. You're here to answer for your brother's latest treasons."

"Your Grace, whatever my traitor brother has done, I had no part. You know that, I beg you, please—"

" _Get her up_!"

The Hound pulled her to her feet, not ungently. Joffrey's usual companion had been Ser Lancel Lannister, a young man whom Sansa had always thought comely and well-spoken, but Ser Lancel had gone away to the company of Ser Kevan Lannister, who she had learnt was his father, once Ser Kevan's army had arrived in the city three days past. Nowadays Joff preferred the company of a dark-haired, haughty young knight whose name she did not know. "Ser Hendry," Joff said, "tell her of this outrage."

Ser Hendry cleared his throat importantly. "The traitor Robb Stark and his black host of demon wargs launched a vicious attack on Ser Stafford Lannister at Oxcross near Lannisport. They bewitched the horses into their service with evil sorcery and murdered thousands of men in their sleep, unable to defend themselves, then devoured the corpses of the dead."

Horror coiled cold hands around Sansa's throat.

"You have nothing to say?" asked Joffrey.

"Your Grace, the poor child is shocked witless," murmured Ser Dontos.

"Silence, fool." Joffrey lifted his crossbow and pointed it at her face. "You Starks are as unnatural as those wolves of yours. I've not forgotten how your monster savaged me."

"That was Arya's wolf," she said. "Lady never hurt you, but you killed her anyway."

"No, your father did," Joff said, "but I killed your father. I wish I'd done it myself. I killed a man last night who was bigger than your father. They came to the gate shouting my name and calling for bread like I was some _baker_ , but I taught them better. I shot the loudest one right through the throat."

"And he died?" With the ugly iron head of the quarrel staring her in the face, it was hard to think what else to say.

"Of course he died, he had my arrow in his throat. There was a woman throwing rocks, I got her as well, but only in the arm." Frowning, he lowered the crossbow. "I'd shoot you too, but if I do mother says they'd kill my uncle Jaime. Instead you'll just be punished and we'll send word to your brother about what will happen to you if he doesn't yield. Dog, hit her."

"Let me beat her!" Ser Dontos shoved forward, tin armour clattering. He was armed with a "morningstar" whose head was a melon. _My Florian._ She could have kissed him, blotchy skin and broken veins and all. He trotted his broomstick around her, shouting "Traitor, traitor" and whacking her over the head with the melon. Sansa covered herself with her hands, staggering every time the fruit pounded her, her hair sticky by the second blow. People were laughing. The melon flew to pieces. _Laugh, Joffrey_ , she prayed as the juice ran down her face and the front of her blue silk gown. _Laugh and be satisfied._

Joffrey did not so much as snigger. "Boros. Meryn." Ser Meryn Trant seized Dontos by the arm and flung him brusquely away. The red-faced fool went sprawling, broomstick, melon, and all. Ser Boros seized Sansa.

"Leave her face," Joffrey commanded. "I like her pretty."

Boros slammed a fist into Sansa's belly, driving the air out of her. When she doubled over, the knight grabbed her hair and drew his sword, and for one hideous instant she was certain he meant to open her throat. As he laid the flat of the blade across her thighs, she thought her legs might break from the force of the blow. Sansa screamed. Tears welled in her eyes. _It will be over soon._ She soon lost count of the blows.

"Enough," she heard the Hound rasp.

"No it isn't," the king replied. "Boros, make her naked."

Boros shoved a meaty hand down the front of Sansa's bodice and gave a hard yank. The silk came tearing away, baring her to the waist. Sansa covered her breasts with her hands. She could hear sniggers, far off and cruel. "Beat her bloody," Joffrey said, "we'll see how her brother fancies—"

" _What is the meaning of this_?"

Suddenly Sansa was free. She stumbled to her knees, arms crossed over her chest, her breath ragged. "Is this your notion of chivalry, Ser Boros?" Tyrion Lannister demanded angrily. His pet sellsword stood with him, and one of his wildlings, the one with the burnt eye. "What sort of knight beats helpless maids?"

"The sort who serves his king, Imp." Ser Boros raised his sword, and Ser Meryn stepped up beside him, his blade scraping clear of its scabbard.

"Careful with those," warned the dwarf's sellsword. "You don't want to get blood all over those pretty white cloaks."

"Someone give the girl something to cover herself with," the Imp said. Sandor Clegane unfastened his cloak and tossed it at her. Sansa clutched it against her chest, fists bunched hard in the white wool. The coarse weave was scratchy against her skin, but no velvet had ever felt so fine.

"This girl's to be your queen," the Imp told Joffrey. "Have you no regard for her honour?"

"I'm punishing her."

"For what crime? She did not fight her brother's battle."

"She has the blood of a wolf."

"And you have the wits of a goose."

"You can't talk to me like that. The king can do as he likes."

"Aerys Targaryen did as he liked. Has your mother ever told you what happened to him?"

Ser Boros Blount _harrumphed_. "No man threatens His Grace in the presence of the Kingsguard."

Tyrion Lannister raised an eyebrow. "I am not threatening the king, ser, I am educating my nephew. Bronn, Timett, the next time Ser Boros opens his mouth, kill him." The dwarf smiled. "Now _that_ was a threat, ser. See the difference?"

Ser Boros turned a dark shade of red. "The queen will hear of this!"

"No doubt she will. And why wait? Joffrey, shall we send for your mother?"

The king flushed.

"Nothing to say, Your Grace?" his uncle went on. "Good. Learn to use your ears more and your mouth less, or your reign will be shorter than I am. Wanton brutality is no way to win your people's love… nor your queen's."

"Fear is better than love, mother says." Joffrey pointed at Sansa. " _She_ fears me."

The Imp sighed. "Yes, I see. A pity Stannis and Renly aren't twelve-year-old girls as well. Bronn, Timett, bring her."

Sansa moved as if in a dream. She thought the Imp's men would take her back to her bedchamber in Maegor's Holdfast, but instead they conducted her to the Tower of the Hand. She had not set foot inside that place since the day her father fell from grace, and it made her feel faint to climb those steps again.

Some serving girls took charge of her, mouthing meaningless comforts to stop her shaking. One stripped off the ruins of her gown and smallclothes, and another bathed her and washed the sticky juice from her face and her hair. As they scrubbed her down with soap and sluiced warm water over her head, all she could see were the faces from the bailey. _Knights are sworn to defend the weak, protect women, and fight for the right, but none of them did a thing._ Only Ser Dontos had tried to help, and he was no longer a knight, no more than the Imp was, nor the Hound… the Hound hated knights… _I hate them too_ , Sansa thought. _They are no true knights, not one of them._

After she was clean, plump ginger-headed Maester Frenken came to see her. He bade her lie face down on the mattress while he spread a salve across the angry red welts that covered the backs of her legs. Afterwards he mixed her a draught of dreamwine, with some honey so it might go down easier. "Sleep a bit, child. When you wake, all this will seem a bad dream."

 _No it won't, you stupid man_ , Sansa thought, but she drank the dreamwine anyway, and slept.

It was dark when she woke again, not quite knowing where she was, the room both strange and strangely familiar. As she rose, a stab of pain went through her legs and brought it all back. Tears filled her eyes. Someone had laid out a robe for her beside the bed. Sansa slipped it on and opened the door. Outside stood a hard-faced woman with leathery brown skin, three necklaces looped about her scrawny neck. One was gold and one was silver and one was made of human ears. "Where does she think she's going?" the woman asked, leaning on a tall spear.

"The godswood." She had to find Ser Dontos, beg him to take her home _now_ before it was too late.

"The halfman said you're not to leave," the woman said. "Pray here, the gods will hear."

Meekly, Sansa dropped her eyes and retreated back inside. She realised suddenly why this place seemed so familiar. _They've put me in Arya's old bedchamber, from when father was Hand of the King. All her things are gone and the furnishings have been moved around, but it's the same…_

A short time later, a serving girl brought a platter of cheese and bread and olives, with a flagon of cold water. "Take it away," Sansa commanded, but the girl left the food on a table. She _was_ thirsty, she realised. Every step sent knives through her thighs, but she made herself cross the room. She drank two cups of water, and was nibbling on an olive when the knock came.

Anxiously, she turned toward the door, smoothed down the folds of her robe. "Yes?"

The door opened, and Tyrion Lannister stepped inside. "My lady. I trust I am not disturbing you?"

"Am I your prisoner?"

"My guest." He was wearing his chain of office, a necklace of linked golden hands. "I thought we might talk."

"As my lord commands." Sansa found it hard not to stare; his face was so ugly it held a queer fascination for her.

"The food and garments are to your satisfaction?" he asked. "If there is anything else you need, you have only to ask."

"You are most kind. And this morning… it was very good of you to help me."

"You have a right to know why Joffrey was so wroth. Six nights gone, your brother fell upon my uncle Stafford, encamped with his host at a village called Oxcross not three days' ride from Casterly Rock. Your northerners won a crushing victory. We received word only this morning."

 _Robb will kill you all_ , she thought, exulting. "It's… terrible, my lord. My brother is a vile traitor."

The dwarf smiled wanly. "Well, he's no fawn, he's made that clear enough."

"Ser Hendry said Robb led an army of wargs…"

The Imp gave a disdainful bark of laughter. "Ser Hendry's an arrogant braggart who's never seen a real battle; he wouldn't know a warg from a wart. Your brother had his direwolf with him, but I suspect that's as far as it went. The northmen crept into my uncle's camp and cut his horse lines, and Lord Stark sent his wolf among them. Even war-trained destriers went mad. Knights were trampled to death in their pavilions, and the rabble woke in terror and fled, casting aside their weapons to run the faster. Ser Stafford was slain as he chased after a horse. Lord Rickard Karstark drove a lance through his chest. Ser Rupert Brax is also dead, along with Ser Lymond Vikary, Lord Crakehall, and Lord Jast. Half a hundred more have been taken captive, including Jast's sons and my cousin Martyn Lannister. Those who survived are spreading wild tales and swearing that the old gods of the north march with your brother."

"Then… there was no sorcery?"

Lannister snorted. "Sorcery is the sauce fools spoon over failure to hide the flavour of their own incompetence. My mutton-headed uncle had not even troubled to post sentries, it would seem. His host was raw—apprentice boys, miners, fieldhands, fisherfolk, the sweepings of Lannisport. The only mystery is how your brother reached him. Our forces still hold the stronghold at the Golden Tooth, and they swear he did not pass." The dwarf gave an irritated shrug. "Well, Robb Stark is my father's bane. Joffrey is mine. Tell me, what do you feel for my kingly nephew?"

"I love him with all my heart," Sansa said at once.

"Truly?" He did not sound convinced. "Even now?"

"My love for His Grace is greater than it has ever been."

The Imp laughed aloud. "Well, someone has taught you to lie well. You may be grateful for that one day, child. You _are_ a child still, are you not? Or have you flowered?"

Sansa blushed. It was a rude question, but the shame of being stripped before half the castle made it seem like nothing. "No, my lord."

"That's all to the good. If it gives you any solace, I do not intend that you ever wed Joffrey. No marriage will reconcile Stark and Lannister after all that has happened, I fear. More's the pity. The match was one of King Robert's better notions, if Joffrey hadn't mucked it up."

She knew she ought to say something, but the words caught in her throat.

"You grow very quiet," Tyrion Lannister observed. "Is this what you want? An end to your betrothal?"

"I…" Sansa did not know what you say. _Is it a trick? Will he punish me if I tell the truth?_ She stared at the dwarf's brutal bulging brow, the hard black eye and the shrewd green one, the crooked teeth and wiry beard. "—I only want to be loyal."

"Loyal," the dwarf mused, "and far away from any Lannisters. I can scarce blame you for that. When I was your age, I wanted the same thing." He smiled. "They tell me you visit the godswood every day. What do you pray for, Sansa?"

 _I pray for Robb's victory and Joffrey's death… and for home. For Winterfell._ "I pray for an end to the fighting."

"We'll have that soon enough. There will be another battle, between your brother Robb and my lord father, and that will settle the issue."

 _Robb will beat him too_ , Sansa thought. _He beat your uncle and your brother Jaime, he'll beat your father too._

It was as if her face were an open book, so easily did the dwarf read her hopes. "Do not take Oxcross too much to heart, my lady," he told her, not unkindly. "A battle is not a war, and my lord father is assuredly not my uncle Stafford. The next time you visit the godswood, pray that your brother has the wisdom to bend the knee. Once the north returns to the king's peace, I mean to send you home." He hopped down off the window seat and said, "You may sleep here tonight. I'll give you some of my own men as a guard, some Stone Crows perhaps—"

"No," Sansa blurted out, aghast. If she were locked in the Tower of the Hand, guarded by the dwarf's men, how would Ser Dontos ever spirit her away to freedom?

"Would you prefer Black Ears? I'll give you Chella if a woman would make you more at ease."

"Please, no, my lord, the wildlings frighten me."

He grinned. "Me as well. But more to the point, they frighten Joffrey and that nest of sly vipers and lickspittle dogs he calls a Kingsguard. With Chella or Timett by your side, no one would dare to offer you harm."

"I would sooner return to my own bed." A lie came to her suddenly, but it seemed so _right_ that she blurted it out at once. "This tower was where my father's men were slain. Their ghosts would give me terrible dreams, and I would see their blood wherever I looked."

Tyrion Lannister studied her face. "I am no stranger to nightmares, Sansa. Perhaps you are wiser than I knew." She wondered what he meant by that. The Imp was the sort of creature that would terrify other men to nightmares, not have them himself. "Very well, then. My uncle Kevan has his quarters outside this castle with the men he commands. You've seen nobody die there. It will mean you won't be present at court, but you do little there and I daresay he will do a better job of keeping you safe and unharmed than Joffrey and my sweet sister."

Sansa fumbled for a lie. "But, but, my lord, surely his soldiers may be rough—"

"Rough? Of course they are. Killing men is their occupation. But they're clever enough to know who to hurt and who not, which is more than can be said for my kingly nephew. No, Sansa, my uncle will keep you safe."

Then a better lie occurred to her. "My lord, wouldn't he be angry with me, because of his brother? Stafford, whom my traitor brother killed?"

The Imp laughed. "Not at all, my lady. My late lady mother was born into a cadet branch of House Lannister. Stafford was her brother, not my lord father's and Kevan's, and Kevan would be the first to tell you Stafford was a dolt."

She felt helpless. _It's happening again. I will never escape. They're taking away everything I can do._ Distantly, Sansa noticed that she was in tears. "My lord, please, my lord, my room—"

"Sansa," the dwarf sighed, "I recognise you don't trust any of my family, but not all of us are Joffrey. Ser Kevan is a knight and a father with children, some of whom are as young and some even younger than you. There will be no more of my kingly nephew's—" his thick lip curled— "'punishments'. I hope you will be comfortable in your new chambers," he finished, and she recognised the dismissal for what it was.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Some of you may have noticed that, quite by accident and against Sansa's own will, Littlefinger's plan with regard to Sansa has been foiled, since Dontos Hollard no longer has access to her. That's not what I expected, but I decided it was probably what my characters would do, in the situation they found themselves in (with Kevan's army in King's Landing).

In case some of you are confused between the different statements in the two most recent Arya chapters about the size of the army that left Harrenhal, let me clarify the matter now. Arya, being a little girl who's never actually seen an army amassing before, saw a colossal number of people with their horses and wagons and bright banners moving, and, quite understandably, mistook a fifth of Tywin's army for the majority of it. (This is the sort of thing I meant when I said that I'm not using an omniscient narrator. I'm not going to pull any "but it was all just a dream" nonsense, making the reader question whether any of it is real—I despise that sort of thing—but my characters are flawed people, not telescopes into the world, so sometimes they get things wrong, especially when they're only catching glimpses rather than getting lots of information.) Tywin is reinforcing King's Landing because he's worried that the campaign in the riverlands is going to be fierce enough that he won't be able to send his whole army rushing to King's Landing if it's in danger, as he did in canon when he heard that Stannis had taken Storm's End; he hasn't abandoned the entire riverlands campaign. Do bear in mind that at this point in time he hasn't yet heard that Robb has attacked Oxcross (which, in canon, caused him to try to go to the westerlands, the march that Edmure blocked); he still thinks the entire Stark and Tully armies are facing him in the riverlands. Even without the Vale, that's a pretty formidable combination. That makes it reasonable for him to pursue a defensive strategy, forcing them to throw themselves against his walls or to attempt river crossings against _his_ power, rather than the other way round.

Next update, Stannis meets Renly.


	10. Chapter 10

**DAVOS**

The early autumn sun shone brightly over Storm's End this afternoon, high and clear and golden. A strong sea breeze whistled past the walls of the ancient fortress, wailing through cracks in the stone of the great tower that yet stood against them. King Stannis cast a pensive, wistful look backward, for just a moment, and then turned ahead. It was one of the only acts of weakness Davos had ever seen from him.

Sharp-eyed Lord Monford Velaryon, the Master of Driftmark, spied something on the horizon. He turned to the king. "They come."

Shortly later the others saw it as well. The forest of banners in the distance were manyfold: the Tyrell green field with a rose of gold, another green field with a dark green turtle for House Estermont, another with a scarlet huntsman for the Tarlys, Caron's small black birds on a field of yellow, the golden tree on a silver field of the Rowans, the russet field with two white feathers that stood for Penrose, House Oakheart's three oak-leaves on gold, the quartered yellow suns on pink and white moons on blue that stood for Tarth, and even, provocatively, the red-golden head of a fox encircled by blue flowers that was the sigil of House Florent, King Stannis's wife's House. But the tallest banner, and of greatest expanse, was a crowned black stag rearing on hind legs on a golden field, the same sigil that fluttered in the wind above them now. Davos saw the king tense as he saw it. His vain little brother did not seek merely to usurp him but to mock him, too, with the knowledge that his father and uncle by marriage had chosen Renly's side.

Lord Renly's rebel bannermen rode through the Vale of Ranimon with confident gait on their magnificent war-bred horses. Stannis's men, having reached the place of meeting first, awaited them. Their own snorting stallions were equally well-bred, but both sides knew it was an illusion. King Stannis had fewer than a thousand mounted men here, while Lord Renly had taken twenty-thousand from Bitterbridge.

"My lord brother," the pretender called out cheerfully. The youngest Baratheon was clad far too extravagantly for a battle; he wore a satin cloak over his velvet doublet and, around his neck, a gold and emerald necklace. Davos noticed that for once he was not isolated among Stannis's counsellors. The eyes of Lord Sunglass, Lord Velaryon and Lord Celtigar, too, were narrowed with contempt.

Stannis acknowledged, tersely, "Lord Renly."

"You ought not to use my banner," Renly Baratheon admonished. "If you do, the battle will be terribly confused."

" _Your_ banner?" It had not taken long for his rebellious brother to stir Stannis's wrath. Davos thought it was deliberate. "I am the eldest living scion of House Baratheon. You have less right to that banner than I do."

"I am the king," Renly said with a smile, "and you are not, so I will use whatever banner I may choose. Tell me, brother, if our beloved Robert ever meant you to be head of House Baratheon, why did he make you Lord of Dragonstone?"

The blow struck with a vengeance. After Stannis had failed to stop Prince Viserys and Queen Rhaella, the last Targaryens, escaping from Dragonstone across the Narrow Sea, his elder brother King Robert Baratheon, out of petty spite, had deprived him of their ancestral seat and given it to Renly, exiling Stannis to that very same remote, poor island with few vassals and few comforts, so that he might never forget his failure. Lord Renly was the sort of man who delighted in mentioning it.

King Stannis was long in replying. "Robert meant to be succeeded by the rightful heir of our House," he replied with clenched teeth, "and that is I, not you or Joffrey. I daresay you know it well. If you did not, would you have thought it possible to displace Cersei and put your supposed wife into Robert's bed as the new queen?"

Stannis was not without skill in taunting his brother as well. Renly was so caught up in the wording of the accusation that he did not bother to deny it. "My supposed wife, Stannis?" he said with a laugh. "Margaery and I were wedded in the sight of the gods and many of the men of the Seven Kingdoms, and without being exiled from our own marriage bed."

The poor jibe failed to rile Stannis. He scented blood. "Wedded, yes," he said, "I don't doubt that. But a marriage requires a bedding too, and that you have never been able to provide." He flung the final blow. "Though mayhaps Ser Loras will gainsay me."

The proud lords arrayed behind Renly, the flower of the nobility of the stormlands and the Reach, shuffled in voiceless discomfort. Some things were open secrets but best not said aloud. "What do you mean by that, Lord Stannis?" Loras Tyrell demanded, urging his horse forward from his place at Renly's side. He drew his sword. "If you dare insult me, do so to my face."

"My lord brother," responded Stannis, "will the sanctity of a banner of peace be violated by your man?"

 _That is quite the parting blow_ , Davos thought. 'Your man' usually meant a man sworn to service, but under the circumstances it could mean something different. "Put up your steel," Renly was forced to say. When Loras did not, he raised his voice. " _Put up your steel_!"

Stung by the anger in his king's voice, the Knight of Flowers sheathed his sword and returned to Renly's side. Stannis leant back in satisfaction. Davos thought, _At least the battle of words is his._

"Enough of this," King Stannis said. "I'm told you came here with a proposal, my lord brother. Make it."

"Very well," said Renly, shaken but not off-balance for long. His poise was swift in returning. He spoke calmly, pleasantly, as if he truly expected to be obeyed: "I propose that you dismount, bend your knee, and swear me your allegiance."

Stannis choked back rage. "That you shall never have."

"You served Robert, why not me?"

"Robert was my elder brother. You are the younger."

"Younger, bolder, and _far_ more comely…"

 _Comely? He thinks his handsomeness should make him king?_ Davos supposed that Renly might have meant it as a joke, but it made little difference. He traded disdainful looks with Lord Sunglass, not bothering to make it subtle. For a moment Lord Renly flushed.

Stannis saw the reaction and pounced on it. "Comely," he repeated, drawing out the word. "Yes, I suppose you are at that. Were the comeliest man in the realm to earn kingship, perhaps 'twould be you. But that is not how men are ruled. The elder brother comes before the younger."

Lord Guncer Sunglass added, quietly, "My lords, would it please you that there be precedent for an unscrupulous man to alter that law among yourselves?"

The high lords Renly had taken with him traded glances. It was a blue-armoured knight next to Renly, bearing his standard, who urged his horse forward and declared, "Our loyalty to King Renly is absolute."

"Is it?" said Stannis. "So you would that in your own House the claim of the younger son should come before the elder?"

"Your claim," said Renly, "matters as much as did Aerys Targaryen's, and for the same reason. No man wants you to be king, brother. Even your lords bannermen follow you only out of duty."

Stannis clenched his jaw, his face taut. "I swore I would never treat with you while you wore your traitor's crown. Would that I had kept to that vow."

"You would that you had died?" asked Renly. "You cannot possibly defeat me. I've four times your numbers, and ahorse rather than foot. You are my own blood and I've no wish to slay you. I am merciful. If you still prefer to live among the memories of old grievances than the harshness of your present world and Storm's End is still what you wish for, you may have it, even after this defiance. I will give it to you as Robert gave it to me, as a brother's gift. All I need to see are your knees falling."

 _Then there is little else to say_ , Davos thought. His king said, "We shall see."

"We shall," acknowledged Renly. "I regret it. Brother."

"Brother."

"Sers, my lords." Renly's men wheeled around, and retreated from the afternoon sun.

Stannis looked older than Davos had ever seen him. "My brother has made his choice. Sers, my lords, with me."

They returned to Stannis's camp around Storm's End. The castle stood defiant still, but it had been quiet. The king was not so great a fool as to attempt to storm his brother's castle. He had near five-thousand men. As Mace Tyrell had proven, for a castle like Storm's End, if well-garrisoned, a dozen times that number might not be enough.

It was not long after reaching camp that Davos was tapped on the shoulder by a messenger boy leading a horse. "Ser," the lad said, "His Grace the King wishes to see you at your earliest convenience."

Davos mounted the horse and headed to Stannis's tent, a great sprawling thing of cloth-of-gold with dancing stags in black, inherited from some particularly gaudy ancestor among the Lords of Storm's End. Stannis did not like it much. "Davos," he said, with no further greeting. "I wished to speak with you without my lords near."

"I am at your service," Davos said with a bow.

"I know," Stannis said, not ungently. "I wonder. What is it that we are to do with my lord brother?"

"Hope he is captured in the battle," Davos offered at once. "You said he was never a great warrior. It sounds to my ears it can be done."

"Or he will die."

Stannis had not lost his penchant for blunt speaking.

"Or he may die," Davos acknowledged. "But it's he as chose to set himself against you. All you can do is try."

"You may be right." The king seemed oddly pensive. His voice was soft. "I never thought it would come to this. The fool that I am, I truly thought—or mayhaps I truly wanted to think—that he might listen to reason. My own brother. I sheltered him in the siege of Storm's End, you know. Even when the rest of us were subsiding on the thinnest scraps of boot leather and rat, myself with no greater share than the lowliest of my servants, I always made certain he was to get more than the rest of us did. He was a child, I told myself, a growing boy, but that was not the reason why. Since our lord father died and Robert saw fit to continue his gallivanting about in the Eyrie with his _friend_ Ned Stark, without the slightest thought for his own family… Maester Cressen and I were both as fathers to him."

Stannis Baratheon steepled his fingers.

"You were a smuggler for a time, Davos. You must know of what I speak. Tell me, how is it that a man may disobey the ties of law and honour and blood in thirst for land and gold and power? Why take joy in such things? Why is there such disloyalty?"

Davos heard the unspoken subtext of the question: _What did I do, that my brother went so wrong?_

He sighed. "I know not how to answer you, my l—Your Grace," Davos said. "For me, it started when I was a poor lad who didn't want to live all my life as a poor beggar in Flea Bottom like as those around me were. I did little tasks for the smugglers, moved things—men are less like to suspect a child—and I got little coins to reward me for it. It was easy to go from there and become one of them myself. There came a time when I was no longer poor, not at all, in truth, a married man with money enough to feed four sons, but I kept at it, as I still wanted the gold it could get for me. But Lord Renly is different. As a child he never wanted for anything, save, it may be, in the siege, and even then, less than others did. What can I say? For some men 'tis in their nature."

"In their nature," Stannis mused. "Mayhaps so. 'Tis a dark thought, yet also, someways, a bright one." He did not have to say why. If it were in Renly's nature, Stannis was not at fault for it. "Yet it could have been avoided. It very nearly was. You know of what transpired in the Eyrie?"

Davos did not understand why his king had moved to this subject. "Yes."

"'Tis more than passing queer," Stannis said, still in that strange soft voice. "My lady wife told me Lady Arryn seemed not at all mad as some had said of her, and, moreover, near to agreement. She had but to consult her lords bannermen and counsellors further, and thought a treaty within reach a few days away. Lady Arryn was conciliatory in the morning, and yet later that very same day, she was wroth as my lady wife had ever seen her, ranting and raving about greyscale and how it might contaminate her son. Greyscale! I'm told she had asked of it before, on the second day of treating, and discounted it and never spoken of it since. One might suspect a maester of the Citadel, but any maester could have told her that once greyscale stops growing on a woman or a man 'tis over; it rarely stops, but 't has never been heard to stop and start again. And my lady wife tells me Maester Colemon was sympathetic to us. How did Lady Arryn's mind change so suddenly? Is that also in her nature?"

Davos had not the faintest idea, so in all honesty, he said so. "I know not, Your Grace. Mayhaps it is."

Stannis barked a laugh. "That is of little enough use to me, but at least of my onion knight I can expect truth. Of my lords I cannot say that. Begone, Davos. I will see you again on the morrow."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I am curious as to whether anyone will figure out, with the information that I've given here, the answer to a mystery I set up earlier in the story. No single PoV character has all the information necessary to work it out, but the reader does.


	11. Chapter 11

**DAVOS**

The sky was still quite dark when Davos was awoken on the morrow, but dawn's rosy fingers were wandering over the horizon. A boy was shaking him but that was not the cause that he no longer slept. Warhorns were blaring all across the camp, loud and clear and angry. "Another outrider arrived," the boy was saying. As Davos's eyes grew accustomed to wakefulness, he recognised him for his son Maric. "Lord Renly's host prepares for battle."

Grim-faced, Davos had Maric help him don his arms and armour, including a new-forged sword. King Stannis had insisted on it. "If I would that my lords treat you as a knight," the king had said, "I needs must treat you as a knight myself. I cannot closet you from battle like an old man, a woman or a helpless cripple." Davos had never been a warrior, but he had received some training in the two moons they had spent here before Lord Renly's arrival, and the king had seen fit to place him with some of his most experienced men. King Stannis wanted him protected.

Davos headed to their camp's makeshift armoury, taking care not to slip. It had rained the night before, as it oft did in the stormlands, and any grass in the camp had long since been trampled away, so there was naught but dust and mud beneath them. From the armoury he took up a pike more than twice his height, with a cruel hook and a vicious half-ax blade as well as the usual spearhead. He did not expect to use it for the whole battle, but for the initial response to the charge, when facing twenty-thousand men ahorse arrayed against them, Stannis Baratheon needed every man. Even the haughty lords and knights, those few of them he had, were fighting mostly on foot for this battle. The king had poorer than a thousand riders. Unless he wished to lose the battle ere it had even begun, he could not permit it to be a gallant clash of knights against Lord Renly.

The king's camp was alive with clattering and chattering as slumbering men awoke, prepared themselves and rushed to their positions. On the other side of the Vale of Ranimon, far to the west, they could hear the sound of hooves, distantly thundering. "The rebels near us," King Stannis was shouting. "You have your orders. We await them."

"Fools wi' more dragons than brains," Davos heard one of the grizzled Baratheon veterans near him tell another. "Chargin' up into the sun. Well, I reckon we're like to teach 'em pretty boys a lesson abou' tha'."

There they were. Some were hard-bitten old soldiers of Stannis's guard, many of whom had served House Baratheon back when Mad King Aerys sat the Iron Throne. Many had fought with Stannis when he won great victories for his House during the Greyjoy Rebellion. But many were green and untested, the fisherfolk of the Narrow Sea, ordered from their homes by the will of the Lord of Dragonstone and commanded to face the fury of the gathered knighthood of Westeros.

They were outclassed and outnumbered. Perhaps all that they could do was scream against the storm. _But if so_ , Davos thought, _where better than Storm's End to do it?_

It was mayhaps half an hour more when men appeared in sight, passing over the tough muddy scrub-land of the valley that had guarded the quickest way westward to Storm's End since the time of the Durrandon kings. Some green young fool of an archer sent an arrow at them. It fell far short. " _Hold_!" Stannis cried from behind the lines. " _Hold_! Hold till they are in range and I give the order!"

A quarter of an hour later, as Lord Renly's knights and freeriders drew nearer, their beautifully woven banners flying, bold tall knights with the golden rose of Tyrell and the stag on gold of Baratheon streaming riding at the head of them, King Stannis gave the order. " _Loose_!"

Murder soared o'erhead, flying well this day of mild wind. There were few tall trees or other such to block the sight of men or flight of arrows and quarrels.

Stannis left no time for gawping. "Nock!" he was already barking. "Mark! Draw! Loose!"

Stannis's own Westerosi bowmen were formidable, but there was greater effect from the Myrmen he had hired as sellswords. Their Myrish crossbows were ungainly, ugly things with odd recurve shapes and strange interplays of strings and wood and iron on the top that Davos did not understand, but whatever they were, they packed a punch: three quarrels at once, and with horrific speed. They aimed not for the armoured knights, but, largely, for their horses. A warhorse was far bigger than a man and took far more steel to armour properly in plate, and the Myrmen were experts. Arrows and quarrels pierced into the charging ranks of knights. Horses screamed. All men knew the joints of armour were where it was weakest. The bold young knight who had ridden ahead of the others, followed by a rose banner, saw three Myrish quarrels at close range tear straight through his fine white well-bred horse's throat. The stallion collapsed. With the gods alone knew how many horsemen hurtling behind him, and with the sun in their eyes to make it hard for them to look at him, the knight let out a scream as he fell face-down in the mud and was trampled by some colossal number of his fellows. It must have been a horrible way to die.

It looked to Davos as though the Stranger itself had descended from on high in the form of arrows and slaughtered all of their foes, but it soon emerged that the onslaught had felled almost none of them. Uncountably many men had been slain, but uncountably more continued onward. Even as renewed rounds of arrows and quarrels slew ever more of them, tall, bold, mounted, brightly coloured banners streaming before them, what looked like half the chivalry of Westeros were bearing down upon the Narrow Sea folk's army in all their terrible glory.

There were several more rounds of arrows. As the charging knights drew nearer, the arrows grew faster at the points in time they struck, and thus grew their penetrating power. Men and horses screamed and writhed in pain, many of them trampled and drowning in the mud, others free of that but nevertheless dying. Yet by far the greater part of the southern knights remained alive and no less lethal, and those mounted men bore down upon the waiting folk of the Narrow Sea.

Never in his life had Davos felt such fear as he felt at this very moment, watching a gleaming-armoured knight on his great destrier galloping towards him, bearing a blue banner with a silver owl. Many of the archers discarded their bows and took up the pikes they had been issued. Stannis's commanders up and down the line were shouting: " _Brace_!"

Then the air was alive with screaming. Renly's knights struck the line: the line of pits Stannis had ordered dug in front of a line stretching all the way around the fortress. He had not known for certain that Lord Renly would attack him from this side. The scrub-land around Storm's End was hard, rugged and rolling, so there had been no difficulty in finding a lip of the land, a place a little way back from a high point, so that the enemy had to charge uphill towards them for a time and would then be moving downhill for a small but crucial distance as they finished their approach. Thus the pits were obscured from the sight of the riders until they were very near.

The riders were moving so quickly, straining with their eyes against the sun, that they had almost no chance of noticing the pit in the ground ahead of them in enough time to make their horses stop. Horses lifted their voices high in agony as their forelegs fell suddenly into the pits while they were charging forward at great speed. There were countless broken legs… and worse.

Bitterbridge was a faraway place. It had taken more than two turns of the moon for a lone mounted messenger from Storm's End to reach Renly's army there and for Renly's host of horse to ride the other way. It could have been quicker, but Stannis had ordered shifts of archers to watch the fortress at all times and shoot down any ravens flying thence, to gain the necessary time to entrench his defences. They could not have built traps stretching far from their lines, to slow the advance of Renly's charge. If they had done so, it would have been obvious to the enemy, so the enemy would have attacked from a direction other than the straightforward route through the Vale of Ranimon, and regardless, there was not the time to build so many traps extending far in all directions from Storm's End. Instead, they needed a trap the enemy could not see, and they made it as bitter as they could. The pits into which Renly's horsemen had fallen were not only pits. Each of them had a large spike embedded deeply in the earth. Thus, by the onrushing force of their own charge, Renly's host of horse drove themselves onto the spikes, and to their doom.

As the world resounded with the cries of maimed and dying horses and men, Davos sprang into obedience to what he had been taught. He levelled his pike toward the pit, looked for the place in the silver-owl knight's armour where his helm joined with his gorget, and drove it in with all the strength he could muster. There was a strangled yelp, a horrific gasping tearing sound, and the man with the silver-owl banner went limp. He was dead.

Davos was frozen from the horror of it. One of the old soldiers beside him thumped him and shook him by the chest, shouting, "Move, move, move!" Davos tried to draw out his pike. It came free with a disgusting wet squelch, and he gagged at the scent of death and dying.

The momentum of Lord Renly's charge had been utterly broken. Instead of bearing down upon their enemies with all the speed they had built up, a formidable mass of man and horse and steel rushing toward the foe, the foremost row of Renly's knights had sunken in the earth, most slain by the earthworks and Stannis's pikemen. Moreover, the Myrish crossbowmen whom Stannis had hired into his service had not put aside their bows like most of the rest of Stannis's archers. They did not stand with the line but behind and above it, on rocks and on mounds of earth excavated from the trench. That gave them a clear shot at Renly's army, at which they could fire from their elevated height, with little risk of hitting their own men. Now, at such exceedingly close range, their odd, squat, foreign crossbows, which many Westerosi men disdained, truly came into their own. They were a terror to behold. In another battle, a different battle, in such a lofty and exposed position they would have been in danger, but Renly's host was one of freeriders and mounted knights, without swordsmen, spearmen or archers afoot. There would be no enemy arrows to deter them. They could loose as they wished, and loose they did, in extraordinary numbers. At Storm's End for the past two turns of the moon Stannis's army had had no shortage of time to fletch and certainly no shortage of wood.

As another row of riders, without nearly enough time to see and understand and halt quickly enough, slammed into the great ditch Stannis's men had dug for them, the greater part of the p;an came sweeping into motion. " _Curve round_!" King Stannis was roaring, again and again. " _Curve round_!"

This too was something they had practised many times before. Davos and the men around him near the far northern end of the line ran outwards and then down the hill, westward, jabbing at Renly's panicked soldiers. The slope of the hill aided their run; it did much of their work for them. They did not have time for large numbers of men behind the lines to rush all the way around and westward. Instead, the northernmost and southernmost parts of the line curled northwest and southwest, around the enemy host, while men from behind rushed in to fill the gaps. Thus, in a smooth well-practised motion, King Stannis's army thinned and curved around Renly's.

It was just in time. Renly's knights, charging uphill with the sun in their eyes, had little time and thought to register that the charge had been halted ahead of them and they needed to stop lest they trample their own fellows, and then their attention was consumed by bringing their horses from full gallop to a sudden halt, winning crucial time for Stannis's manoeuvre.

Now Renly's knights were in a dire state indeed. A great mass of men, reeling at the shocking swiftness with which the battle had turned against them and the suddenness with which they had had no choice but to stop, were an easy target at close range for the brutal punch of the Myrmen's quarrels, while Stannis's men surrounded them from three sides out of four and stabbed at them from a distance with their long pikes, making it harder for them to get their panicked horses under control. Like a crab's claws closing, Stannis's army fell upon them, driving their pikes into the horses their enemies were trying to calm. As it happened, Davos lost any sight or understanding of the broader scope of the battle. There was nothing but him, the men in front of him and the men around him. A facedown knight nearby, trodden on by a panicking fleeing stallion, spluttered one last time and stopped moving, drowned in the mud. A tough man of middle years with a broken leg shat himself and screamed for his mother as a man near Davos put a sword through him. An armoured knight fell unexpectedly off his horse as Davos shoved the pike into it. He could not get up. Davos tried to pull out the pike, but the horse was thrashing around and it was torn from his hand with arm-wrenching strength. He drew his sword and plunged it between the man's cuirass and cuisses, into his gut. The poor fellow stopped moving. Men were shouting orders, screaming, crying, but he could understand none of it. There was only the clamour of battle and his blood thundering in his ears.

It was a slaughter, but not in only one direction. Some of Renly's armoured knights were able to get their horses under control, or get off them without disabling themselves, and they waded into battle. Heavily and expensively armoured, they had been trained from youth to be more skilled with the sword than all but a handful of Stannis's men. There was much that men had tried to say about how to fight with a sword, about parries and footwork and ripostes. Davos remembered none of it. There was only blind, near-drunken lashing out in the direction of the enemy with swords and pikes and whatever else men had to hand, flinching away from heavy blows and seeking, often, more to beat each other to death than to fight with any semblance of skill or chivalry. Men all around Davos fell dying, soiling themselves, screaming for their mothers, filling the air with the stench of shit and blood and gore. Stannis had dispersed his knights and experienced men-at-arms throughout the line, leaving no section full of undisciplined men, for fear of breaking. Nonetheless, it took a greater cost in blood to slay the latter one man in five than it had taken for the former four.

At this point, fighting those knights who had survived the arrows and the trampling and the pits and the pikes, Davos finally heard new orders come through the morass of battle. " _Curve back_!" men were repeating in shouts, from the side of him closer to the original line. " _Curve back_!"

Dazed, incomprehending, pulled by his more experienced escort, Davos followed orders. The line of Stannis's men curled back on itself, swords and pikes bristling outward as if the army were some gigantic quilled beast. Moving away from their position around Renly's men, heading back uphill, the men retreated to their former place, guarded by their earthworks. Stannis's own men on horseback rode down some of the survivors. Others ran down the hill as hundreds of them—or mayhaps thousands, it was difficult to know—had already done. The sun was still low in the sky, so what had seemed an age could not have taken too long. It must still be fairly early in the morning. But Davos felt already so tired he could scarcely lift a sword. He had never known such bone-deep exhaustion. As his heart slowed somewhat and he more clearly registered the reek of death, Davos threw up.

"'Tis fine," one of the old guardsmen said to him, patting him on the back. "Happens to everyone."

It was then that Davos understood. Rushing towards them, shining, gleaming, banners streaming, was yet another group of knights, too many to count, too many to comprehend. The black birds on yellow of House Caron flew at the enemy host's left, Lord Rowan's golden tree on silver at the centre, and Renly Baratheon's own black crowned stag on gold reared triumphantly at his army's right. They had not defeated Renly's army. They had only fought the vanguard. For all the time that had passed, all the work that they had done, all the exhaustion they had suffered, they had only fought the vanguard. In spite of all the hate and fear and blood and horror, they had only fought the vanguard.

That terrifying idea was lodged in Davos's head and it would not go.

" _Ranks_! _Order_! _Ranks_! _Order_!" Stannis was yelling. The king's throat sounded raw. Davos would not obey, could not obey, but somehow he did. His sword and mail felt like they weighed as much as a house, but slowly, he trudged back to his former place. Renly's army was closing in.

The main bulk of Lord Renly's army did not attack all at once. Clearly he had conferred with the survivors who had escaped from the fall of his vanguard. Thanks to uncounted millennia of men living there, the centre of the Vale of Ranimon, though still rolling terrain of uneven height, was clear clean grass—or, at least, it had been, till it had been trampled into mud by thousands of King Stannis's men-at-arms and thousands more of those who had gathered around them: serving boys and girls, camp followers, merchants selling shoes and food, and all the others who came like ants spilt from a hill to the presence of a great host. The enemy centre remained ahorse and awaiting, but, whilst out of range of Stannis's archers, a strong number of Renly's men dismounted and struggled up the sides of the valley, the steep, rocky, rugged land to the north and the south, trying to push their way through the hardy bushes and shrubs.

 _That, at least, is wisdom._ Davos did not know war, not as the hardened warriors beside him did, but he knew Stannis Baratheon, and so he knew Lord Renly had been foolish to charge heedlessly up what seemed to be the clear way, as if his kingly brother would ever have allowed him such an easy victory. _Did he not know we had turns of the moon to prepare?_ Any mounted charge straight into the sun and the teeth of Stannis's earthworks was inviting death.

But Renly's choice did not come without cost. As Lord Renly's knights in shining armour shoved through the hard and unforgiving land they were now being forced to traverse, a task they were unused to in their dignity, they struggled into range of Stannis's archers. Deadly quarrels punched through the air, many of them Myrish. Myrish crossbows had not the range of the longbows of the Seven Kingdoms, but they were still lethal, especially when they had the luxury of firing downhill against slowly moving targets who could scarcely see them while they, themselves, were facing away from the sun. Moreover, those strange mechanical devices had penetrative power that not even the strongest of Westerosi longbowmen could hope to match. Calmly, and utterly out of danger themselves, the Myrish crossbowmen fired quarrel after quarrel into the men of Lord Renly's army.

Moreover, Stannis had foreseen this possibility, or perhaps he had just had so much time to await this battle that he could afford to spend some of it on many eventualities. He had not intended to give any easy way out to his younger brother. They did not have boiling oil, and in any case the shrubs were too wet with the stormlands' rainfall to alight, but they had logs aplenty, and when climbing the precipitous, rugged ground, the force of falling wood was as deadly as fire. Also, oftentimes a knight cutting and shoving past a persistent bit of low shrubbery while trying not to trip on the hard rocky path would find himself falling into a ditch or his feet mauled by a crow's-foot, a nasty pronged piece of metal that could be hidden at the ground to wound passing men. Stannis lacked a great many men from his own Narrow Sea island dominions, so he had to resort to other means, and he had prepared for long on Dragonstone ere announcing his own bid for kingship. He had brought thousands of them.

Watching them fight through the rough, treacherous land, their numbers thinned by crow's-feet from below and quarrels and logs from above to which they could make no reply, not fallen in the heat of battle but coldly slain by an enemy they could not touch, Davos thought that Renly's knights must surely break soon. But the knights of the Reach and the stormlands did not scare easily. Whatever insane principles had been instilled into them as children, whatever follies they believed of chivalry and courage, it availed them now, for it too was a form of strength. Davos marvelled at their bravery, even as he hated it. While their fellows fell in their hundreds or mayhaps their thousands, Lord Renly's men struggled up the sides of the Vale of Ranimon.

Stannis's soldiers awaited them. "Assemble to repel," the king shouted. Men were gathering at each side of the line, thinning it, though there were enough still there to discourage any foolish attempt at a repeated charge.

Soon after the king spoke, Renly's men came close enough to be within range. Now, in addition to the hellish rain of Myrish crossbows' quarrels and the occasional log flung to knock away Renly's soldiers, spear after spear flew from the ranks of Stannis's army towards them. Davos had never counted himself a man of prodigious strength, but his position aided him. Throwing from above, with the spears' own weight strengthening the speed of their blows, it was common for them to knock Renly's men off-balance, and in the harsh rocky terrain and full plate armour falling was as easy as it was dangerous. As more of Renly's men died, slain by the timber the king's men had gathered and carved over many days here, Davos saw Stannis Baratheon allow his hard-pressed lips to loosen slightly. To achieve such triumph against an enemy that so outnumbered them was almost worthy of a smile.

Now the men were coming closer still. Lord Caron's nightingale banners flew menacingly before them as the standard-bearers followed their master up the treacherous ground he trod. Spears and bolts and pits and crow's-feet slew them, yet nevertheless they came, and with a screeching clash of steel on steel they met in battle.

All disappeared but the men to his sides and the men before him. Metal rang and people screamed as they died, be it by the fall or by the sword. Renly's men had the better armour, but Stannis's they could attack them with long pikes and swords and push them stumbling away from their own stable, well-footed position above. Blood and shit were everywhere. Davos's arms ached as they never had, even after the worst of voyages, but he did not want to die so he kept fighting. It was more reflex than otherwise. There was no thought to it, no glory, nothing but savagely beating other men away and trying not to die.

After a thousand years, or a dozen seconds, the foe fell back for a while, seeking to recover their strength. Then they pressed forward again. Again the din filled Davos's ears, and again he somehow found the vigour to lift his sword and push against the enemy as best he could. Davos had heard much from his sons of the glorious clash of arms of a knightly charge. This seemed nothing like it. It was more akin to a bar brawl, a mob of wrestling men with weapons that were scarcely weapons, but on a grander scale. The battle was like a vicious struggle between two giants, each with fingers of steel and fists of dead men.

It was during one of these lulls in the fighting on the northern side that Davos heard it. There was a sudden thundering of feet, and men from behind the line rushed to the south, to the left of Stannis's army, with their swords and spears and pikes and shields at the ready.

"What's happening?" he shouted over the din.

"The left's hard-pressed!" one of his escort shouted back. "The king's called upon the reserve. We needs must throw them back, or we are lost!"

Now Davos could see it. There was nothing clear in the identity of men on the far other side of the line, struggling, but he did see Lord Renly Baratheon's stolen banner being paraded further forward. There must have been a bulge of Renly's men against Stannis's line. They had not yet fully gained the flatter, less rugged lip of the land on which Stannis's men were standing, but some of their foremost men must evidently be onto it, or close.

" _Call the guard_!" Lord Velaryon hoarsely bellowed, who commanded Stannis's host's right. " _Send to the castle_! _Make all haste_!"

The silver-haired Lord of the Tides did not wait to be obeyed. Grim-faced, he turned to his men, though he seemed distracted, his eyes flickering. "We must stem the bleeding." He was looking for someone, Davos realised, though he did not know for whom or why. Then dark indigo eyes met his own. "Ser Davos, you have the command."

Davos had little idea what to do, but he could hardly refuse such an order. He did not think one of the mightiest lords of the Narrow Sea would have entrusted him with such a duty if there had been another man of sufficiently high stature to take it up in his stead. "To me!" he cried, his voice as loud as he could make it. It did not possess the instant, decisive authority of Lord Velaryon's, the voice of a man who assumed and expected to be obeyed, but for now it sufficed. With a ragged cheer, men gathered around him. Some were his old Baratheon guardsmen, ordered to protect him by King Stannis, and somehow one of those near him still bore a small ship-and-onion Seaworth standard— _in the Father's name I wish they never made that thing_ —but not many. Most of those were gone, some dead but more simply diverted away in the chaos of battle. The bulk of his new command were red and green men, green for that they were the fisherfolk of the islands of the Narrow Sea, taken from their homes to fight at Stannis's command, red for that they had been tested now, pruned now, blooded now, hardened now, but still they feared, and still they clustered around a man who seemed able to lead them. _I am not able to lead them_ , Davos thought miserably, _I am not a knight, I am not a lord, born to such duties as this. I was born as low as they were._ But King Stannis had made him a knight, no matter what he had been born as, and he had a duty, and perhaps that was enough.

"To me!" he yelled again and again, ensuring his new followers could hear him, as he headed to the defence of Stannis's left. As they rushed behind the lines he caught a glimpse of the king, coal-black-haired, Baratheon-tall, looking straight at him. Davos spied a single nod of royal approval, then Stannis Baratheon vanished as he ran, and Renly's banner, though not moving, came nearer.

Davos's sword met one of Renly's with a shriek of steel, high and shrill as the wailing of the damned in the seven hells. The man against him was a highborn knight, but he was less burly than Davos was, and as the man tried to force him away with his sword Davos knocked him over. He tried to pull Davos over with him. Davos tried to resist the man's grip on his leg. Unable, he kicked open the young knight's visor and plunged a bloody sword into his fair-haired face.

Breathing heavily, Davos pulled himself up and hurled himself against another man of Renly's, battering at him with a sword that even now, after all the help Stannis had ordered given to him, he did not feel truly confident to use. The man fought back, and so they continued, fighting, killing, screaming, for more than a little time.

The struggle was getting brighter, better, Renly's men being shoved away from the foothold they were trying to attain on the central valley's smoother land. There had been a moment of great peril, the line at the left buckling, nearly breaking, but nonetheless, stiffened by the influx of new men, the line had held.

Then, hearing, Davos dared the briefest of glances backward. Storm's End, so distant it seemed almost small but its great tower still reaching above the horizon, clamoured faintly with the sounds of battle.

" _Fuck_!" swore the man beside him. Davos understood why. Clearly the messenger boy had reached the guard Stannis had left around the castle and the reinforcements Lord Velaryon had ordered from that guard had come to them at last, but the garrison had attacked the remaining men in an attempt to sortie from the gates. They had no choice but to leave them to fight as best they could. Reinforcements from here to the castle could not be sent now that the battle was in such a perilous state.

And then he heard the shouting. In that instant, uncertain, terrified, weakened by being deprived of some of their men to bolster Stannis's nearly broken left, faced with yet another deadly scrambling rush of Renly's left, the right side of the line faltered. Somehow, after all the hours of fighting, it happened in seconds. One moment the men of the right were standing, shields locked, against Renly's host. The next, many of their shields had been cast aside and many of them were fleeing as fast as their legs could carry them. Those of the Narrow Sea fisherfolk who had remained steadfast cried out in sudden terror as Lord Caron's heavily armoured men spilt, like wine from a broken glass, onto the clearer land. One of them held aloft a silver-haired head that Davos supposed must have belonged to Monford Velaryon, though the blood was drying already. It was clear the Lord of the Tides had not been slain anew.

Somebody sounded a horn. It was a dreadfully loud and clear ululation. Then the silver banner with the golden tree was surging forward, several thousand highborn mounted knights in full magnificence, destriers snorting, armour shining, lances pointing, seeking to surmount the high ground through the breach in Stannis's line. Renly's centre and reserve, Lord Rowan's host, had committed at last.

" _Hold the line_! _Hold the line_!" Stannis was roaring, but other lowborn men were already throwing down their swords and taking to their heels. Their discipline had been broken. Trained, carefully prepared, conditioned, they may have been willing to fight and risk their lives for a living cause, but not to lay down their lives for a lost one. It was almost instantly clear that the situation was unsalvageable. All of them knew that if Renly's men were to gain the stable ground the battle was over, and now they had.

The discipline of the left and centre did not long outlast the right. With Lord Rowan's mounted knights bearing down on them and Lord Caron's knights afoot tearing their way through the left, now no longer at a great disadvantage of ground and making full use of their better armour, any but a blind man could have told the way of the battle. King Stannis's army broke. Davos lifted a hand against a man of mayhaps six-and-ten namedays, a wispy-bearded boy in leathers screaming for his mother. "Stop," he tried to say, trying to stop him, shake him, but there was a silvery glint and a short sharp pain and he fell, shitting himself and gasping. His chest felt at once cold and warm, and when he looked down he could scarcely see for blood.

Renly's knights had no mercy to the defeated. Surging onto the clearer ground, many of them ahorse, they butchered the men fleeing from them with great swipes of lances and swords. In flight many times more men were dying in each moment than they had in battle. Some of them, rather than dying in the chase, tried to fall to their knees and beg for mercy. It availed them naught. Davos caught sight of Lord Renly, the rebel's helm's fancy antlers catching the light, roaring with rage as he mauled one after another of his royal brother's people.

Davos tried to breathe in shallow rasps. Instead he shat himself and he found himself coughing. As he knew his time had come, he cursed Lord Caron, cursed Lord Rowan, cursed the deserters— _such godsdamned cowards!_ —cursed the gods, even, for letting King Stannis fail. Perhaps it was his fault. He had never prayed enough to the Warrior. A knight he may have been, but that god had never been the most pertinent of the Seven to a life like his. _Still… a knight._ That, Stannis had given him. But most of all he cursed Lord Renly, cursed him for what he had done to his brother, cursed him for his scheming, for his ambition, for his overweaning pride, and he prayed fervently to any god that would listen that they would remember this day, remember Renly's choice of power over family, remember the needless slaughter perpetrated on highborn and, mostly, lowborn by the supposed flower of the south's chivalry, and one day another man would see revenge.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I've been working out all the timings for this story (though I don't think it would be a better story if it were full of calendar dates, so I haven't been showing them) and it turns out Catelyn wouldn't arrive in time.

Believe it or not, Renly's main mistakes are canonical; this is what he intended to do. Stannis's preparations, of course, aren't, since we never got to see them in canon, because the battle never happened and Catelyn Stark, the PoV character through whom the reader observed these events, never visited Stannis's camp as she did Renly's. Basically, Stannis did what one could reasonably expect of a commander in his position, once the choice to fight that battle has been made (though that's a questionable choice), and Renly screwed up an awful lot, but it wasn't enough. I'm not very good at chess, but I'm certain I could beat a grandmaster if we only started playing most of the way through the game and the board was sufficiently unfair when we started. Of course, in any real battle, the two sides don't start with identical capabilities, as in chess. That sums up the problem Stannis faced against Renly here. It isn't easy to defeat twenty-thousand well-armoured cavalry with five-thousand infantry who are mostly conscripted fishermen, especially when the local castle (a useful force-multiplier) is garrisoned by your opponent, not you.

It would be possible, _just about_ , with a healthy helping of luck, for Stannis to defeat Renly in this battle. Basically, what it would take is for Renly to get killed. If that happens, Stannis wins by default. But that was never a very likely outcome. In spite of all the social pressure for a king to be gloriously leading a charge, Renly chose not to. I don't think he's the sort of Robert-esque warrior-king who personally rushes into battles, that is to say, real battles where there's a genuinely serious possibility that he might get killed; he doesn't strike me as that sort of man. In my opinion, nineteen out of twenty times this battle was fought, Stannis would have lost it. One _can_ choose to write a story where he gets super-lucky and wins it, but that was never intended to be the premise of _Knees Falling_. A great part of the initial motivation for this work was to think of just how important Melisandre's shadowbaby—not the one that killed Ser Cortnay Penrose, the one that really matters, the one that killed Renly—was to the outcome of the war. I like Stannis as a character—his willingness to do his duty to the realm, and place that above personal power, makes him my favourite of the five kings—but putting aside my partiality, realistically Renly would have defeated him if it had come to battle. If Renly hadn't been such an incompetent commander, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as close as this… though one could also argue that if Stannis hadn't been so socially inept, so poor at getting lords onto his side even when he clearly had the right of inheritance over his younger brother, it wouldn't have been so uneven in the first place!


	12. Chapter 12

**TYRION**

"They are calling it the Clash of the Stags. 'Tis for that it took place outside Storm's End, and that is what they call it when two stags lock antlers, you see." Varys gave an obsequious smile. "Lord Stannis is dead, as I said, and he is not alone in that. Near all of his army was slain with him."

"Ill news indeed," Tyrion said. He had counted on the brothers Baratheon decimating each other in bloody battle, preferably taking many turns of the moon to do it. "What do you know of Renly's losses?"

Ser Kevan looked approving of the question. _That is a good sign._ Tyrion dared not be too hopeful, but it was clear that it was of the utmost importance to get the Lord Marshal on his side.

"Oh, those are tidings whose flavour you will much prefer, my lord. 'Twas a victory dearly bought." Varys steepled his fingers. "Lord Renly expected his brother's host to be scattered by his vanguard ere his main force even arrived, and many of his knights jostled for the opportunity to join it. 'Tis difficult to hear the specifics of what happened next—there were few who survived, and I suspect Lord Renly does not wish them to be known, for obvious reasons—but they charged into a well-laid and well-hidden trap and then they were surrounded. The massacre was almost total. Lord Renly had to swallow his pride, dismount and send most of the rest of his army to climb up on harder ground, which I am given to understand was made crueller still by pits, Lord Stannis's attacks, and crow's-feet. He lost more in trying to make the ascent before he was at last able to surmount and bring his host to bear upon Lord Stannis. Even the lightest, most generous accounts speak of five-hundred slain in the ascent slain. From what my little birds have told me, I believe the true loss to be double that. His whole losses are like to be four to four and a half thousand, or thereabouts." The eunuch took a sip of his wine. "Perhaps we should raise a glass each to Lord Stannis, for he has so kindly removed himself from the list of enemies whom we are bound to fear and he has harmed our greatest adversary as severely as any man could hope to."

Tyrion had not expected that to be taken seriously, but his sister did. "To Lord Stannis," she said, with an ironic lift and tilt of her glass. "May the time he rots in the seven hells be a little shorter, for the service he has done us." After they all drank, Cersei asked, "Which lords were entrusted with command and won most glory in the battle, and may be chief in Renly's councils? I would know my enemy."

"Lord Renly gave the chief positions to Ser Loras Tyrell," Varys said, "who led the vanguard. Lords Caron of Nightsong and Rowan of Goldengrove led the left and centre. Lord Renly led the right. As for Lord Renly's councils, Lord Tyrell of course stands at the head, and he was always close to Ser Loras, who fell early in the battle. Randyll Tarly also has his ear, and Lord Renly values Tarly's counsel as a warrior, though he fears appearing too dependent on him and chose not to give him a major command."

Kevan said, "That is good news, at least. If nothing else, we have the advantage of poor enemy leadership, which is not to be discounted. If Lord Stannis inflicted a hard, near-fought battle on Lord Renly where there should have been an easy victory, perhaps we can imitate that. Do you know what Lord Stannis's host was?"

"I hear Lord Stannis had a host of ten-thousand men ahorse." Varys gave a wry smile. "Which is rather interesting, as previously I heard that he had half that number, and fewer than one in a dozen of them mounted. And, of course, 'tis the men of the stormlands, most of whom are behind Renly or hearing tell from those who are, who are saying."

"So they lied, then," Littlefinger said, "to make Lord Stannis seem too feeble to be worth joining."

"Mayhaps," Varys said, "or mayhaps they are lying now, to make their heavy losses less embarrassing. My instinct is towards that. It is hard to believe Lord Stannis could have mustered a force of such size, even with all the sellswords he could hire from across the sea. But Lord Stannis allowed few to leave Dragonstone, so we have no tidings of his army from before he laid siege to Storm's End to corroborate in either direction."

Littlefinger sounded doubtful. "To slay four thousand knights with five thousand men, near all of them afoot?"

Tyrion raised an eyebrow. "Indeed. The late Lord Stannis may have been a gifted lord commander, and Lord Renly a fool, but that seems a little extreme even then."

"No doubt you are right, my lords." Varys gave them a simpering smile. "But it is of little import now. Whatever army he had, it died with him. It appears mercy is not one of Lord Renly's kingly virtues."

"And what of the royal fleet, Lord Varys?" Kevan demanded.

"Why, little, my lord," said Varys. "They fled before Lord Renly could take them. One might presume they are waiting idly with Lady Selyse on Dragonstone."

"There is our opportunity," Kevan declared. "I care little for what we might sacrifice to gain it. We need Lady Selyse's allegiance."

"Why so, my lord uncle?" said Tyrion. "What good would her fleet do us? Lord Renly will not march here by sea. We cannot thus block him from approaching the city."

"And the islands of the Narrow Sea are poor as dirt," said Cersei. "What little the islanders can spare of their fish will never sate the hunger of this city. And their men-at-arms were few enough before this battle. Lord Stannis complained incessantly to us of it; Robert groaned whenever he spoke of it, like all the times he moaned about various things to do with being made to give up Storm's End for Dragonstone. Now? After this Clash of the Stags, I doubt she has as many as a thousand."

Kevan looked frustrated. "Do none of you see? In the position we find ourselves in now, even _two_ -thousand more men-at-arms are of less value than the royal fleet. Yes, it cannot stop Lord Renly on the march, but it _can_ sail up the river and stop him from crossing the Blackwater. That means _everything_. He has no hope of surrounding the city from all sides on land if he cannot cross the river, and even if he did, we would not be surrounded truly."

Kevan pointed at the window, where the Red Keep overlooked the mouth of the Blackwater and the deep blue, seemingly endless expanse of the Narrow Sea.

"So the fleet could escort merchantmen bearing food to us. That would remedy the city's starvation at a stroke. Without the ability to starve us into submission Lord Renly cannot take the Iron Throne by laying siege. He will have no choice but to attempt to take the city by storm. My lord brother says oft that one man on a wall is worth many men beyond it. Here we have four-thousand men of mine and perhaps one or two thousand of the gold cloaks salvageable enough to be of good worth." The Lord Marshal looked around the room in appeal. "My lords, Your Grace, I would not envy Lord Renly sitting beneath the shadow of our walls with no choice but to take them by storm, always a gamble, risking that he may spill an ocean of his soldiers' blood for no gain at all."

Tyrion sat still and weighed his uncle's proposal in his thoughts. Cersei, of course, said at once, "But uncle, we cannot treat with her. That letter came from Dragonstone."

"Her husband wrote that letter, Your Grace," Littlefinger said. Tyrion tried to control his surprise; he had not expected the master of coin to support the Lord Marshal. "I know of no reason to think she had a hand in it."

"And she may hate us, and regard us as adulterers and usurpers," Tyrion said slowly, "but Lord Renly has just killed her husband—oh, not by his own hand, I grant you, but 'tis past certain by his will the deed was done—and her hopes of making her daughter queen died with him, and near all her lords bannermen's levies. I daresay if we were wise in how we went about it we could persuade her, however little love she has for us, she hates Lord Renly more."

"But how would we ever persuade her?" Cersei objected, mostly to Kevan. "What titles or honours can we offer her that she would value highly enough to join those she thinks of as usurpers? She thought herself a queen, and if Lady Arryn and then Lords Tully and Stark had consented, perhaps she would have been one. Her allegiance won't be won with crumbs from our table."

"Then if it is worth so much to us to have the royal fleet," said Tyrion, "we needs must offer her more than crumbs from our table."

"'Tis easy to _say_ that," Cersei snapped. "What do you mean to give her?"

"Why, nothing more or less than what she sought before," Tyrion said with a crooked smile. "Her daughter as queen. But not by inheritance; by marriage."

" _What_?You would marry _my son_ to a girl with _greyscale_?"

"A girl formerly with greyscale, sweet sister," Tyrion sighed. "Few afflicted by it are lucky enough for it to stop its progress, but if it dies, 'tis dead; it doesn't spread further on the body, nor is it catching. And her greyscale was on her face, not her, ahem, nether regions. There's no reason to believe her to be aught but perfectly fertile."

"But—" Cersei seemed to realise she needed to change tack. "But Joffrey is betrothed to Sansa Stark."

"Marriage contracts can be broken. What advantage is there in wedding the king to the daughter of a dead traitor?"

"And the Lady Shireen's bloodline is impeccable," Ser Kevan Lannister interjected. "On one side she is Joffrey's cousin in House Baratheon. On the other, the Florents are a House of ancient stock, by far more venerable and respectable than the Tyrells they serve, and may well be tempted to join us were we to hold out a hand to them, 'less we look too weak to be worth fighting for."

"But the girl is too young," said Cersei. "She's three years his junior. 'Twill be six years at the very least, more like to be eight or ten, ere she is strong enough to bear him a child."

"It will," Tyrion agreed, "but Tommen can marry an older girl to stabilise the succession, as well as Myrcella's Dornish marriage. And when he requires, ah, further sustenance before the Lady Shireen is old enough to participate, well, there are solutions."

Littlefinger leant on an elbow resting on the table and clasped his chin in a gloved hand. Tyrion was fairly sure that Lord Baelish wanted the queen not to see his smile.

"Joffrey will never be so base as Robert or you. He will never drown himself in wine and whores," Cersei retorted.

"Doubtless you know your son better than I do," Tyrion said sweetly. Cersei nodded, all confidence. "In which case the Lady Shireen's youth is no problem for him, so we need hear no more of it."

He had to admit, if only to himself, that Cersei's impotent, silent rage was _immensely_ satisfying.

"I am pleased the matter is settled, my lords, Your Grace," Petyr Baelish said. "As this idea is yours, my lord Hand, and long has it been said that the Hand speaks with the king's voice, I suppose you will soon be on your way to Dragonstone."

 _What?!_

His sister added her voice to Littlefinger's with alacrity. "Oh yes," Cersei said pleasantly, twisting the knife. "You are of the king's blood, brother dear. The Florents are of ancient pedigree, and, for their dispute with House Tyrell, intent on such in a manner few other Houses are. Surely Lady Selyse would accept no less. And, why, who could be better-suited to the role? You wield words as skilfully as Jaime wields a sword."

Tyrion was stunned. The suddenness of his sister's move—unplanned as it must have been, taking advantage of his own suggestion—took him wholly by surprise. He knew perfectly well that if he were exiled from the city everything he had achieved here would soon be undone and Cersei would do her best to reassert control of the capital, in the process handing true power to corrupt snakes like Pycelle whom she lacked the wits to recognise for what they were.

He fumbled for an excuse. "You are too kind, sister, but it seems to me that a boy's mother is better fitted to arrange his marriage than any uncle. And you have a gift for winning friends that I could never hope to match."

Cersei was still smiling. "But you said it yourself, brother. Lady Selyse regards us as adulterers and usurpers. Joffrey and I dare not go. I shudder to think what she might do to us!" It was an unconvincing shudder. "But you, even in her eyes, are guilty of nothing but fighting for your family."

"Her Grace makes a convincing argument," Kevan intervened. "I am needed here. No man or woman else can command the defence of the city. Lady Selyse will react better to you, my lord Hand, than to any other of our House, and a Lannister it needs must surely be."

 _Traitor!_ Tyrion was dumbstruck. His lord uncle had not seemed enamoured of Cersei's leadership; he had not expected him to take her side. A disagreement between the Queen Regent and the King's Hand could go either way, and Ser Kevan alone could not defy all civil authority, but with the rest of the council united against him, including the queen and the Lord Marshal of the Defenders of King's Landing, he had no recourse. He looked to Varys, in a desperate hope that the eunuch would speak for him, but the master of whisperers shrank from his gaze back into his chair.

 _Gods damn them all._ Tyrion rose to his feet. He said icily, "It appears my lords have come to a conclusion. I will require a written commission, Your Grace, signed and sealed by you and the king, making absolutely clear to the Lady Selyse that I come with your blessing and sanction to act on your behalf. And I will need plenty of gold and time to buy bounteous gifts for Lady Selyse and her lords bannermen… well, mostly ladies and widows at that, now, I suppose."

"Done," Cersei said at once. She gave him a look like the cat that got the canary. "You do us a great service, brother dear. Joffrey will be so grateful."

"I look forward to it," Tyrion said sourly. "Is that all?"

"I believe so," said Cersei.

It was a dismissal if ever he had heard one.

Tyrion was in his bedchamber that evening, drowning his sorrows in a bottle of fine Lysene white, when he heard the call from the door. "Your uncle's here," Bronn called, with his customary regard for courtesy.

Tyrion sat upright and, quickly, splashed a little water on his face. He dared not too much, lest it be obvious. "Send him in."

Ser Kevan Lannister, Lord Marshal of the Defenders of King's Landing and most trusted confidant of the Lord of Casterly Rock, entered the room in surprising lack of dignity. He was alone, leaving his guardsmen outside, and dressed plainly. "Tyrion," the man said gently.

"Uncle," Tyrion said. It had not meant to sound like a curse, but it did. "Why are you here?"

"To speak with you," said Kevan. "Tyrion, you must understand, it was not meant as a slight. I spoke naught but the truth when I spoke of why I think you should be sent in the king's stead, rather than your sister… but I did not relate the _whole_ truth."

"Does it matter?" Tyrion asked. "I will leave the city and Cersei will assume control. 'Tis what you wanted. I'll remember it, I promise you that; a Lannister always pays his debts. Why now do you come to me?"

The sting of betrayal was still hot. He had trusted Kevan. His uncle had been kind to him when he was a boy in Casterly Rock and his lord father was not.

"I'm aware you and your sister have never shared what a brother and a sister should," Kevan said with a sigh, "but this is not part of that quarrel. I chose to send you because you truly are better-suited to negotiation than your sister. She has too much pride, and grows wroth and devoid of reason whenever she scents a whiff of insult. In the company of Lord Stannis's widow there will be more than a whiff of it for our House. Are you so convinced of my malevolence that it truly does not occur to you that I am right, you _will_ be better at the task than Cersei?"

A plan began to form in Tyrion's mind. He hung his head in mock contrition. "I suppose you're right," he lied. "I apologise for my discourtesy."

"Good." Kevan looked relieved. "Whatever else may come, you are my nephew, and I would not that you think ill of me."

"Pray do not leave yet, my lord uncle," Tyrion said. "There is much we must discuss. This city is a pit of serpents and it is incumbent upon me to tell you what I know of them ere you must deal with them without me."

"That sounds wise," Kevan said cautiously. "What of it?"

Tyrion paused, picking his words carefully. "Petyr Baelish has his fingers in more pies than you may care to think," he said. "I have been going through his accounts, as well as the reports of Varys's whisperers, for more than four turns of the moon. Under him the crown's revenues are tenfold what his predecessor could acquire, but I fear it is not only from legitimate means. He doesn't just store the king's gold. He takes it, lends to those he considers likely to repay him, buys concerns in ships and houses and cloth and grain and dyes and anything you can imagine. He moves it, stores it, sells it on in times when the price is more favourable. It all seems to work, and his numbers are meticulously recorded; I've checked many of them with the folk of the city the crown has done business with to see if I can catch him out, and there's nothing to find where the records do not match the true transactions. And I do not think it is as simple as stealing from the treasury, for the gold we truly have stored in the vaults and the gold his figures suggest that we should have are one and the same. All the numbers add up. But I have reason to believe that in the past there have been other transactions where he lent out the king's gold and put it back, with no obvious discrepancy, and kept the gold for himself. A _lot_ of it."

"How do you know?" asked Kevan.

"Near three moons past, Lord Baelish appeared to be ill. I didn't trust that for a moment, so I posted guards to watch his properties and all the gates of the city. If a man as canny and ambitious as Lord Baelish should choose to absent himself from the city which is his centre of power, 'twill not be for a minor reason. Five men with good enough resemblance to Littlefinger to work in the darkness tried to leave the city from various properties of his on that same night. We caught them. None of them were the real man. All of them had been hired independently by the same man, an old sellsword with lopsided teeth, white hair and a long nose, who has vanished without a trace. I visited his sickbed myself, and the man there resembled him so strongly I almost thought that it was truly himself and that the decoys might have been sent as a ruse by Varys or Cersei… but I kept watch, and I believe he didn't anticipate that, as it profited me. Near three weeks after his disappearance, he wandered into one of his brothels in the guise of an old drunkard, a convincing guise but not good enough to fool my clansmen. His recovery was announced the next day. I sent men beyond the city to see if I could find where he had gone, and from a chattering servant I discovered it: Castle Spilbroke."

"Spilbroke?"

"I'd never heard aught of it either. 'Tis a small keep east of Rosby three days' ride from the capital, owned by a certain Lord Raymont Spilbroke. He is the least and meanest sort of lord, and I daresay there are perhaps a few dozen or hundred landed knights in the Seven Kingdoms with lands of similar size, but a lord nonetheless. I have men watching him now. I know naught of what Littlefinger gained from him, but I know what he gained from Littlefinger: several thousand dragons, stored in a heap in his wine-cellar. Not a grand sum on the scale of the king's debts, but enough to ransom a dozen knights of the noblest birth, and many times more than Lord Baelish's own holdings could supply in a lifetime. Fortunately Lord Spilbroke is much less discreet than his visitor. My men gathered much of this information from talkative servants at his keep, and from the same source I know Lord Spilbroke had no contemporaneous visitor. Whatever Littlefinger is using Lord Spilbroke for, he has gone to extraordinary lengths to hide it from us, and he has stolen royal gold."

"So he's been taking gold he could have given to the king, but only gold he earned which we wouldn't otherwise have, and he has some arrangement with a backcountry lord. He probably means to marry the man's daughter, negotiating discreetly. 'Twould be little enough, but his own House is poor and new, and if this House Spilbroke is older than his own, 'tis a step up for House Baelish. I see no reason why I should be concerned, and less still why I should replace a man who you yourself have admitted is excellent at what he does for us," Kevan concluded, briskly. "Is that all?"

"Far from it," Tyrion said, his thoughts racing. He had not expected his uncle to disregard the matter with Lord Spilbroke, but it was not the only piece of dirt he had to expose. "I've examined the payments of the gold cloaks. With the way the price in food has soared, the lowest-ranking watchmen are paid so little they can scarcely afford to buy food, even lower than most are paid in this city, so they have little choice but corruption and intimidation if they want to eat. I've taken a look discreetly at the merchants and shopkeepers of the city, and many of them pay tithes to the City Watch to protect them from thieves and vandals. If they don't pay, the thieves and vandals, often recognisable as men of the Watch, smash their wares themselves. Meanwhile, a sergeant of the Watch earns thrice his men's wages, and for higher ranks it multiplies further. Though the number of men in the lower ranks has risen vastly in the time the city has been threatened, since the beginning of the war, the number in the higher ranks for every ordinary watchman has risen faster. So the gold cloaks have little choice but to get entangled in a network of corruption which enserfs them to Littlefinger, as he can threaten them with exposure and death for looting if they move to disobey him, while those who are obedient are rewarded with higher rank, not to command as a deserved award but to receive more money, to give an incentive for loyalty to him. Littlefinger brought the gold cloaks against Eddard Stark when we settled the matter of the succession, though he was convinced the man was on his side. It is he who rules them, and no other. Janos Slynt was his man. Jacelyn Bywater is mine, but he presides over a Watch filled with men whose loyalties lie with Littlefinger."

"Yet none of that says he deserves dismissal," Kevan said. "Corruption in the Watch would be concerning in a perfect world, but if it keeps them sweet, that is a price worth paying. Did he live, the late Lord Stark could have told you not to trust such men to act from honour. As far as I know, Lord Baelish served King Robert and his lawful heir well. I do hope this isn't just because he agreed with your sister."

Tyrion was growing desperate. Only now did he reveal his final card. "Of course it is," he said, "but that feud is for good reason. Do you know he tried to have me killed?"

That, at last, got through to his uncle. " _What_?"

"He did," Tyrion insisted. "When Lady Catelyn took me prisoner she was utterly convinced I was guilty of sending a killer with a dagger I've seen before, a Valyrian steel blade and a dragonbone hilt, to murder her second son, Brandon, at Winterfell after he fell from a tower while climbing, an attempt she foiled and got deep scars on her fingers for the trouble. I only survived because I found a sellsword who won a trial by combat against one of Lady Arryn's knights for me. 'Tis a dagger I'm alleged to have won from Littlefinger over the joust Loras Tyrell won against Jaime on Joffrey's nameday. In truth Littlefinger did lose that dagger, but not to me. You know I never gamble against Jaime. Robert did, so the knife was in royal hands… and accessible to the keeper of his treasury. Who had told her? Why, none other than her trusted childhood friend Petyr Baelish, when she secretly visited King's Landing while her lord husband was Hand for Robert because of this same affair with Brandon Stark. And I know her tale to be true, she did meet Littlefinger, for I saw that same dagger on Littlefinger's hip when I returned to the city. He knows it as well. He even mocked me with it, offering it to me, using the words: 'it's yours'."

"I see," Kevan said softly. "That, if not the others, warrants questioning, and questioning there shall be. Rest assured I shan't trust Lord Baelish."

Tyrion exhaled, weary with relief. "I'm very glad of it, uncle. Eddard Stark did, and see where that left him. But I am not done."

Kevan raised an eyebrow. "More on Lord Baelish?"

"No. Others. Grand Maester Pycelle is as treacherous as any, but he's a less dangerous traitor than Littlefinger. He urged Aerys to let in you and my lord father for the Sack of King's Landing, poisoned Lord Arryn on behalf of Cersei and helped her to kill King Robert too, you may wish to know." Even Kevan looked shocked at the latter. "When I sent a raven with important information to the Prince of Dorne, planning Myrcella's marriage, specifying that he mustn't read it and that secrecy was of the utmost importance, he told it to Cersei, who threw a fit that her daughter might wed. It nearly ruined everything. You shouldn't trust any message you send through his ravens to be unread. Doubtless he'll betray you to Cersei as easily as he'll betray her to you."

"Noted," Kevan said grimly. "I gather that scarcely any of the small council can be trusted. Who next? The Spider?"

"Oh, don't trust him either, 'tis good sense, though I've not caught him at anything truly nefarious yet. But no. The next is Cersei."

That took Kevan aback even further. "Gods be good, Tyrion, have you gone mad? Your sister a traitor? The king is her own son!"

"Oh, she won't betray _him_ , uncle, but there's much you need to know of her. You wouldn't believe it from me, so you should ask the one I heard it from myself: not her son, yours."

"Lancel?"

"Oh yes." Tyrion was enjoying this. _Exile me from the city, will you, Cersei? Very well. You won this round. I am done for. But I'll shortly be a sea's voyage away from you, and a cornered lion is most dangerous of all._ "Go to him, uncle. Tell him that you love him and you won't be angry. Be kind to him. He is not the one at fault for this. And tell him that I sent you to him and for both your sakes, so that you know how trustworthy my sister is, I want him to tell you the truth."

"Tyrion," Kevan said with surprising softness, "I know we may not be as close as you and Jaime, and I thank the gods that if nothing else you have as warm a kinship with him as I have with my own elder brother. But I've known you and loved you since you were newborn, when my lord brother was consumed with grief for Joanna, as perhaps he still is in some ways. How in the names of all the gods did you come to think I wouldn't believe the truth from you?"

Tyrion was touched. It was almost enough to make him stop manipulating the man. Almost. "That is kind of you, uncle, truly, but I insist. You will not believe how great an ill deed it is unless you hear it from someone you trust as much as you trust your son."

"Very well. I will speak with Lancel." Kevan rose, heavily. "Gods speed, Tyrion. May the winds bear you swift and safe."

"And with company?" quipped Tyrion.

His uncle laughed. "Yes."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Tyrion, by the machinations of his enemies, has been thrust into a situation where his life expectancy might be very short indeed, if Lady Selyse is in a vengeful mood. He's also been exiled from the city, which he dreaded in canon, fearing that it would allow Cersei to get rid of all the progress he'd made. As a result, he's in a "if I'm going down, I'm taking you down with me" mood towards Cersei, so he's giving Kevan all the dirt he can muster on Cersei and her allies. In case anyone doesn't remember, in canon (and also in this story, unchanged from canon) Cersei made Lancel, who's a very young man, have a love-affair with her in a rather abusive relationship, using him as a toy while Jaime is gone, and Kevan is Lancel's father. Tyrion thinks of Kevan as Cersei's pawn and his aim is to deprive Cersei of a useful pawn by making Kevan think poorly of her. This isn't a cunning ploy for some subtle game; he's just lashing out as Cersei in a manner as damaging as he can without publicly revealing the Cersei-Jaime incest, since that would hurt Jaime too (as well as hugely discrediting House Lannister as a whole) and Tyrion likes Jaime.


	13. Chapter 13

**ARYA**

Confusion and clangour ruled the castle. Men stood on the beds of wagons loading casks of wine, sacks of flour, and bundles of new-fletched arrows. Smiths straightened swords, knocked dents from breastplates, and shoed destriers and pack mules alike. Mail shirts were tossed in barrels of sand and rolled across the lumpy surface of the Flowstone Yard to scour them clean. Weese's women had twenty cloaks to mend, a hundred more to wash. The high and humble crowded into the sept together to pray. Outside the walls, tents and pavilions were coming down. Squires tossed pails of water over cookfires, while soldiers took out their oilstones to give their blades one last good lick. The noise was a swelling tide: horses blowing and whickering, lords shouting commands, men-at-arms trading curses, camp followers squabbling.

Lord Tywin Lannister was marching at last.

Lewys Lydden, Lord of Deep Den, was the first of the captains to depart, a day before the rest. The figure of a white badger on a field of green and brown was held aloft by his standard-bearer as he rode northward at the head of many men ahorse and many more afoot. _I hope he dies_ , Arya thought as she watched him ride out the gate, his men streaming after him in a double column. _I hope they all die._ They were going to fight Robb, she knew. Listening to the talk as she went about her work, Arya had learnt that Robb had won some great victory in the west. He'd captured Casterly Rock and put everyone to the sword, or he was besieging the Golden Tooth… but _something_ had happened, that much was certain.

Weese had her running messages from dawn to dusk. Some of them even took her beyond the castle walls, out into the mud and madness of the camp. _I could flee_ , she thought as a wagon rumbled past her. _I could hop on the back of a wagon and hide, or fall in with the camp followers, no one would stop me._ She might have done it if not for Weese. He'd told them more than once what he'd do to anyone who tried to run off on him. "It won't be no beating, oh no. I won't lay a finger on you. I'll just save you for the Qohorik, yes I will, I'll save you for the Crippler. Vargo Hoat his name is, and when he gets back he'll cut off your feet." _Maybe if Weese were dead_ , Arya thought… but not when she was with him. He could look at you and smell what you were thinking, he always said so.

Weese never imagined she could read, though, so he never bothered to seal the messages he gave her. Arya peeked at them all, but they were never anything good, just stupid stuff sending this cart to the granary and that one to the armoury. One was a demand for payment on a gambling debt, but the knight she gave it to couldn't read. When she told him what it said he tried to hit her, but Arya ducked under the blow, snatched a silver-banded drinking horn off his saddle, and darted away. The knight roared and came after her, but she slid between two wayns, wove through a crowd of archers, and jumped a latrine trench. In his mail he couldn't keep up. When she gave the horn to Weese, he told her that a smart little Weasel like her deserved a reward. "I've got my eye on a plump crisp capon to sup on tonight. We'll share it, me and you. You'll like that."

Everywhere she went, Arya searched for Jaqen H'ghar, wanting to whisper another name to him before those she hated were all gone out of her reach, but amidst the chaos and confusion the Lorathi sellsword was not to be found. He still owed her two deaths, and she was worried she would never get them if he rode off to battle with the rest. Finally she worked up the courage to ask one of the gate guards if he'd gone. "One of Lorch's men, is he?" the man said. "He won't be going, then. His lordship's named Ser Amory castellan of Harrenhal. That whole lot's staying right here, to hold the castle. Half a company of Ser Flement's men are to remain too, for the foraging, but Ser Flement's to ride with his lordship. Ser Amory will command."

The Mountain would be leaving with Lord Tywin, though. He would command the van in battle, which meant that Dunsen, Polliver, and Raff would all slip between her fingers unless she could find Jaqen and have him kill one of them before they left.

"Weasel," Weese said that afternoon, after another messenger reached him, "get to the armoury and tell Ben that Ser Addam's men need another six-and-forty lances." Ser Addam Marbrand had long copper hair that streamed past his shoulders and was a favourite of the castle women. Weese liked him. Before, he'd called him a great horseman and sword fighter, Lord Tywin's most daring commander.

Arya ran. The armoury adjoined the castle smithy, a long high-roofed tunnel of a building with twenty forges built into its walls and long stone water troughs for tempering the steel. Half of the forges were at work when she entered. The walls rang with the sound of hammers, and burly men in leather aprons stood sweating in the sullen heat as they bent over bellows and anvils. When she spied Gendry, his bare chest was slick with sweat, but the blue eyes under the heavy black hair had the stubborn look she remembered. Arya didn't know that she even wanted to talk to him. It was his fault they'd all been caught. "Which one is Ben? I'm to get new lances for Ser Addam's company."

"Never mind about Ser Addam." He drew her aside by the arm. "Last night Hot Pie asked me if I heard you yell _Winterfell_ back at the holdfast, when we were all fighting on the wall."

"I never did!"

"Yes you did. I heard you too."

"Everyone was yelling stuff," Arya said defensively. "Hot Pie yelled _hot pie_. He must have yelled it a hundred times."

"It's what _you_ yelled that matters. I told Hot Pie he should clean the wax out of his ears, that all you yelled was _Go to hell!_ If he asks you, you better say the same."

"I will," she said, even though she thought _go to hell_ was a stupid thing to yell. She didn't dare tell Hot Pie who she really was. _Maybe I should say Hot Pie's name to Jaqen._

"I'll get Ben," Gendry said.

Ben, a tall fair-haired man, was not pleased when she gave him Weese's message. "They broke so many of 'em in jousts again? Them pretty boys showin' off all the time to get in washerwomen's cunts, it makes a right hassle for the rest of us. Why'd they need that much practice more 'n what the other knights gettin', I asks you? No, don't you answer that, girl, I doesn't mean _you_. Tell Weese I'll do it, _again_ , Mother be merciful. Run along now."

She did.

The gates were open, soldiers coming and going, drays rolling in empty and going out creaking and swaying under their loads. She gazed out longingly. It occurred to her that she could just walk out, act as if she were bringing a message, as she often had before. Would anybody think to stop her? Mayhaps, mayhaps not, but if they did, then Weese… Weese…

As she chewed her lip, trying not to think about how it would feel to have her feet cut off, a group of archers in leather jerkins and iron helms went past, their bows slung across their shoulders. Arya heard snatches of their talk.

"…giants I tell you, he's got _giants_ twenty foot tall come down from beyond the Wall, follow him like dogs…"

"…not natural, coming on them so fast, in the night and all. He's more wolf than man, all them Starks are…"

"…shit on your wolves and giants, the boy'd piss his pants if he knew we was coming. He wasn't man enough to march on Harrenhall, was he? Ran t'other way, didn't he? He'd run now if he knew what was best for him."

"So you say, but might be the boy knows something we don't, maybe it's _us_ ought to run…"

 _Yes_ , Arya thought. _Yes, it's you who ought to run, you and Lord Tywin and the Mountain and Ser Addam and Ser Amory, all of you better run or my brother will kill you, he's a Stark, he's more wolf than man, and so am I._

She found Weese with the women washing cloaks. He was shouting at one of them, as usual. She was behind him and he _didn't see her!_ He always knew where you were, he said so, but he didn't know where she was. The thought gave her a little thrill. "I did it," she told him from behind him, "Ben said he'll fit the lances."

"Took you long enough. Next time be quicker about it." Weese dealt her a stinging slap with the back of his hand. "And that's for creeping up on me like that. Next time, you talk to my face, you hear me?"

For a moment, she had been a wolf again, but Weese's slap took it all away and left her with nothing but the taste of her own blood in her mouth. She'd bitten her tongue when he hit her. She hated him for that.

"You want another?" Weese demanded. "You'll get it too. I'll have none of your insolent looks. Get down to the brewhouse and tell Tuffleberry that I have two dozen barrels for him, but he better send his lads to fetch them or I'll find someone wants 'em worse." Arya started off, but not quick enough for Weese. "You _run_ if you want to eat tonight," he shouted, his promises of a plump crisp capon already forgotten. "And don't be getting lost again, or I swear I'll beat you bloody."

 _You won't_ , Arya thought. _You won't ever again._ But she ran. The old gods of the north must have been guiding her steps.

Halfway to the brewhouse, as she was passing under the stone bridge that arched between Widow's Tower and Kingspyre, she heard harsh, growling laughter. Rorge came around a corner with three other men, the manticore badge of Ser Amory sewn over their hearts. When he saw her, he stopped and grinned, showing a mouthful of crooked brown teeth under the leather flap he wore sometimes to cover the hole in his face. "Yoren's little cunt," he called her. "Guess we know why that black bastard wanted _you_ on the Wall, don't we?" He laughed again, and the others laughed with him. "Where's your stick now?" Rorge demanded suddenly, the smile gone as quick as it had come. "Seems to me I promised to fuck you with it." He took a step toward her. Arya edged backward. "Not so brave now that I'm not in chains, are you?"

"I _saved_ you." She kept a good yard between them, ready to run quick as a snake if he made a grab for her.

"Owe you another fucking for that, seems like. Did Yoren pump your cunny, or did he like that tight little arse better?"

"I'm looking for Jaqen," she said. "There's a message."

Rorge halted. Something in his eyes… could it be that he was _scared_ of Jaqen H'ghar? "The bathhouse. Get out of my way."

Arya whirled and ran, swift as a deer, her feet flying over the cobbles all the way to the bathhouse. She found Jaqen soaking in a tub, steam rising around him as a serving girl sluiced hot water over his head. His long hair, red on one side and white on the other, fell down across his shoulders wet and heavy.

She crept up quiet as a shadow, but he opened his eyes all the same. "She steals in on little mice feet, but a man hears," he said. _How could he hear me?_ she wondered, and it seemed as if he heard that as well. "The scuff of leather on stone sings loud as warhorns to a man with open ears. Clever girls go barefoot."

"I have a message." Arya eyed the serving girl uncertainly. When she did not seem likely to go away, she leant in until her mouth was almost touching his ear. "Weese," she whispered.

Jaqen H'ghar closed his eyes again, flouting languid, half asleep. "Tell his lordship a man shall attend him at his leisure." His hand moved suddenly, and Arya had to leap back to keep from getting drenched.

When she told Tuffleberry what Weese had said, the brewer cursed loudly. "You tell Weese my lads got duties to attend to, and you tell him he's a pox-ridden bastard too, and the seven hells will freeze over before he gets another horn of my ale. I'll have them barrels within the hour or Lord Tywin will hear of it, see if he don't."

Weese cursed too when Arya brought back that message, even though she left out the pox-ridden bastard part. He fumed and threatened, but in the end he rounded up six men and sent them off grumbling to fetch the barrels down to the brewhouse.

Supper that evening was a thin stew of barley, onion, and carrots, with a wedge of stale brown bread. One of the women had taken to sleeping in Weese's bed, and she got a piece of ripe blue cheese as well, and a wing off the capon that Weese had spoken of that morning. He ate the rest himself, the grease running down in a shiny line through the boils that festered at the corner of his mouth. The bird was almost gone when he glanced up from his trencher and saw Arya staring. "Weasel, come here."

A few mouthfuls of dark meat still clung to one thigh. _He forgot, but now he's remembered_ , Arya thought. It made her feel bad for telling Jaqen to kill him. She got off the bench and went to the head of the table.

"I saw you looking at me." Weese wiped his fingers on the front of her shift. Then he grabbed her throat with one hand and slapped her with the other. "What did I tell you?" He slapped her again, backhand. "Keep those eyes to yourself, or next time I'll spoon one out and feed it to my bitch." A shove sent her stumbling to the floor. Her hem caught on a loose nail in the splintered wooden bench and ripped as she fell. "You'll mend that before you sleep," Weese announced, as he pulled the last bit of meat off the capon. When he was finished he sucked his fingers noisily, and threw the bones to his ugly spotted dog.

"Weese," Arya whispered that night, as she bent over the tear in her shift. "Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling," she said, calling a name every time she pushed the bone needle through the undyed wool. "The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei." She wondered how much longer she would have to include Weese in her prayer, and drifted off to sleep dreaming that on the morrow, when she woke, he'd be dead.

But it was the sharp toe of Weese's boot that woke her, as ever. The main strength of Lord Tywin's host would ride this day, he told them as they broke their fast on oatcakes. "Don't none of you be thinking how easy it'll be here once m'lord of Lannister is gone," he warned. "The castle won't grow no smaller, I promise you that, only now there'll be fewer hands to tend to it. You lot of slugabeds are going to learn what work is now, yes you are."

 _Not from you._ Arya picked at her oaten cake. Weese frowned at her, as if he smelt her secret. Quickly she dropped her gaze to her food, and dared not raise her eyes again.

Pale light filled the yard when Lord Tywin Lannister took his leave of Harrenhal. Arya watched from an arched window halfway up the Wailing Tower. His charger wore a blanket of enamelled crimson scales and gilded chinet and chanfron, while Lord Tywin himself sported a thick ermine cloak. No less than three standard-bearers went before him, carrying huge crimson banners emblazoned with the golden lion. Behind Lord Lannister came his great lords and captains. Their banners flared and flapped, a pageant of colour: red ox and golden mountain, purple unicorn and bantam rooster, brindled boar, a silver ferret and a juggler in motley, stars and sunbursts, peacock and panther, chevron and dagger, black hood and blue beetle and green arrow.

Last of all came Ser Gregor Clegane in his grey plate steel, astride a stallion as bad-tempered as his rider. Polliver rode beside him, with the black dog standard in his hand and Gendry's horned helm on his head. He was a tall man, but he looked no more than a half-grown boy when he rode in his master's shadow.

A shiver crept up Arya's spine as she watched them pass under the great iron portcullis of Harrenhal and turn northward. Suddenly she knew that she had made a terrible mistake. _I'm so stupid_ , she thought. Weese did not matter, no more than Chiswyck had. _These_ were the men who mattered, the ones she ought to have killed. Last night she could have whispered any of them dead, if only she hadn't been so mad at Weese for hitting her and lying about the capon. _Lord Tywin, why didn't I say Lord Tywin?_

Perhaps it was not too late to change her mind. Weese was not killed yet. If she could find Jaqen, tell him…

Hurriedly, Arya ran down the twisting steps, her chores forgotten. She heard the rattle of chains as the portcullis was slowly lowered, its spikes sinking deep into the ground… and then another sound, a shriek of pain and fear.

A dozen people got there before her, though none was coming any too close. Arya squirmed between them. Weese was sprawled across the cobbles, his throat a red ruin, eyes gaping sightlessly up at a bank of grey cloud. His ugly spotted dog stood on his chest, lapping at the blood pulsing from his neck, and every so often ripping a mouthful of flesh out of the dead man's face.

Finally, someone brought a crossbow and shot the spotted dog dead while she was worrying at one of Weese's ears.

"Damndest thing," she heard a man say. "He had that bitch dog since she was a pup."

"This place is cursed," the man with the crossbow said.

"It's Harren's ghost, that's what it is," said Goodwife Amabel. "I'll not sleep here another night, I swear it."

Arya lifted her gaze from the dead man and his dead dog. Jaqen H'ghar was leaning up against the side of the Wailing Tower. When he saw her looking, he lifted a hand to his face and laid two fingers casually against his cheek.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** The text of this chapter was mostly the same as the text of the corresponding chapter in canon. As I believe I've already said, I've done that with quite a lot of chapters where there are only minor alterations from canon. There are, however, some important differences, because Lord Tywin's strategic position is not the same, the army he has available to him is not the same (remember the four-thousand men who went to King's Landing) and therefore, well, I'll leave you to guess what he's going to do.


	14. Chapter 14

**TYRION**

The sky was that of a moonlit morning, studded with stars, and the ocean wind was clear and cold. Not even the first tendrils of sunlight had crept over the horizon. Tyrion was thankful that he had chosen to dress warmly. On his face, uncovered by furs, the chill was biting. If there was aught that could be said of it, at least it took away the smell. King's Landing's waterfront facing the sea, beyond the Iron Gate, was full of the stink of dead and rotting fish. In better times, with the fish being cooked, the scent was pleasant, but not now that the city was starving. The nearby waters of the river and Blackwater Bay had been scoured by hungry fishermen devoid of their usual prudence, and now men had little choice but to subsist on the scraps.

 _Maiden Dancer_ , the impounded merchant ship that would carry him to Dragonstone, was anchored in a good berth at the quay with the two galleys of King Joffrey's fleet escorting her, while the small party of fewer than two-hundred men awaited at the waterfront. She was a squat, fat-bellied ship with a prettily painted hull and, when set, big billowing sails, designed for carrying barrels of spice and wine from Dorne, ill-adapted for swiftness or for ramming or for battle. It made Tyrion uneasy to detach any substantial part of their already inadequate fleet, especially as another part would be leaving for Braavos and then Dorne with Princess Myrcella, but he had little choice in the matter. Both those alliances were too important to give any but the best of security.

A dozen more grim-faced men-at-arms, wrapped up warm beneath their Lannister red cloaks, moved in good order onto the quay and thence across planks to the ships. They climbed aboard and stood at guard, lion halfhelms gleaming in the starlight, ere Tyrion himself followed behind them with forty knights and their squires. Without a tail of such, Tyrion knew, he would seem of small account, and ordinarily so many knights would have a greater retinue. But the dominion of islands and bay coasts once ruled by Stannis, Lord of Dragonstone, had lost most of its men-at-arms in the Clash of the Stags, and the last thing the Lannister delegation wanted to do was to appear threatening.

The Narrow Sea was rough this morrow. With the harsh wind almost like a physical blow, the short walk to the _Maiden Dancer_ was nonetheless cold, rocky and unpleasant. Tyrion was relieved once he was safely on-board. It did not last long. The ships drew up their anchors and set sail to depart. They were not small boats, but as they went further from the shore the waves grew taller and struck hard. The rocking was incessant, relentless. Another man might have composed a song about the nature of the ocean. Tyrion just hated it. He staggered to the side and was, repeatedly, violently ill. He did not always make it to the side. Though they had to pretend to be polite, the crew of the _Maiden Dancer_ seemed not to realise that his hearing was unaffected; they frequently cursed him under their breath, oft as "landlubber fool of a lordling", as they washed his vomit from the deck.

They sailed all day. On occasion they passed protruding rocks, but never a true island. Tyrion got little sleep that night or the night after it, though he managed perhaps four or five hours during the night after the night after it. He was unaccustomed to the ocean's swell and did not care to become so. It was the day after that when they caught sight of land: the isle of Driftmark. Galleys from Driftmark espied them many miles out from there, but must have seen their white sails and white flags, for though they sailed out athwart them, they did not attack. After the galleys sent out a dinghy to ascertain who they were, they were permitted to set sail, under heavy escort, to Dragonstone.

Most of his knights and soldiers were as unused to the sea as Tyrion, so they were a much more miserable delegation when they disembarked and stepped ashore. The harbour of the isle of Dragonstone was far greater than that of King's Landing, and it was crowded with ships to match. Varys's whisperers had heard tell of strange foreigners in Stannis's service, Lyseni and Myrishmen. If there had ever been such, none were present now. The ships of the royal fleet in which King Robert had invested so much of a fortune were so manifold they seemed numberless, countless great dark forms with deep draughts and high sails stretching so far that one could almost wonder whether there was truly any end to them, but it was plain to see that they were all of Westerosi making.

By some ship faster than theirs, Lady Selyse must have been forewarned, for there was a mass of soldiery present at their arrival. Men-at-arms in the livery of House Baratheon, though with yellow frequently replacing the more expensive paint of gold, stood in ranks to greet Tyrion and his retinue as they walked off their ships, and standards of the black stag on a golden field were everywhere to be seen. Thousands of curious smallfolk were watching, quite fearlessly, from behind them. The contrast between the well-fed, sometimes even round-bellied fisherfolk of Dragonstone and the starving citizens of King's Landing was more striking than Lady Selyse could have realised or intended. The guard was a paltry display compared to the silent threat of the amassed royal fleet at harbour—it was plain to see the men were green, their helms oft ill-fitted, sometimes not even holding their weapons in the manner of men accustomed to them—but Tyrion could tell the intent behind it. Selyse Baratheon knew they were here and meant them to fear her.

A red-cloaked herald blew a few notes on an exquisitely tuned gold trumpet and proclaimed: "Announcing Tyrion of the House Lannister, of Casterly Rock, Hand of the King, here to treat with the Lady Selyse Baratheon!"

A silver-haired knight rode out from among the men in Baratheon livery. "Sers, my lord of Lannister—" of course the man did not acknowledge him as Hand— "I have the honour to be Ser Laerys Galenyon, and I come as envoy of my lord father's liegelady, Selyse of the House Baratheon, Lady Dowager and Regent of Dragonstone. The Lady Selyse requests that you enter her hall and eat her bread and salt. You will be housed comfortably, and you will be received at court shortly."

Tyrion doubted very much that Selyse Baratheon meant it as a request, but it was not as if he had a choice. "Lead on, ser."

The castle of Dragonstone, named for the island— _or is it the other way round?_ —loomed tall and dark afore them. It was wrought of a strange black stone, not oily and matte in colour as he had heard of Asshai but dry and quite smooth, with not large lumps but tiny grains that caught the light each at a hundred angles, making the fortress seem at once midnight-dark and, queerly, vanishingly, piercing-bright. Tyrion wondered at it, knowing the Valyrians in times of yore had wrought their great works as much with stone as with their sorcery. The like of Dragonstone could never be built again.

Given the strange dark-and-bright stone and the monstrous gargoyles of countless mythical creatures all over the castle, the exterior of Dragonstone had been astonishing enough. Somehow, the interior surpassed it. The outside of the castle had, at least, been built with simple curved and flat surfaces, sensibly designed to repel an assault. On the inside there had been no such concessions to practicality. Dragonstone's Valyrian builders had stopped at nothing to make it in the image of their dragons. Gates and doors were held by dragons rampant. Thresholds were dragons lying on the floor. Roofs were dragon wings, and torches were clasped by dragon-claws. Even entire towers enclosed within the walls were shaped like dragons, resulting in some rooms with strangely shaped and sloping sides. All was made of the same queer reflective black stone that Tyrion had seen before. The Valyrians, it seemed, had been more than a little fond of it.

To Tyrion's surprise, in spite of the rugged look of openness to the winds of the sea, the bedchamber to which Ser Laerys directed him was warm and more than tolerable, although he, his knights and his lowborn soldiers were dispersed throughout the castle, deprived of their weapons, and the corridors were flush with armed Baratheon guards. _A blind man could see the old hag places in us no more trust than she would give a true lion, tail twitching, in hunting poise, two feet from herself._ Even for food he was not reduced to always eating fish, as he had thought he might be; the meals brought to him by Lady Selyse's serving girls were quite satisfactory. But despite her envoy's promise of a swift audience, she did not receive them for nearly a week.

So it was that Tyrion was impatient indeed when Lady Selyse finally deigned to invite him to her presence. The Great Hall of Dragonstone was the most ambitiously distorted yet. The whole chamber was wrought in the shape of a reclining dragon, though it would have to be a dragon of such monstrous size as to make the largest dragon that had ever lived seem like the runt of the litter. The gates, great enough that a man could have ridden in on horseback without trouble, were themselves contained in their entirety within an even larger, fabulously detailed artifice of stone, wrought to resemble the gigantic not-a-dragon's maw, and the high ceiling rippled as if Tyrion were indeed inside a living thing and not a chamber. Hundreds or mayhaps thousands of listeners were arrayed on either side of the chamber, chattering excitedly. It was a room that could have made Ser Gregor Clegane look small. So much more so Tyrion. Knowing that it could not have been designed for him, Tyrion was nonetheless somehow resentful of it as he waddled through the clear space in the centre of the hall, approaching the high seat at the far end where the Lady Dowager of Dragonstone sat.

Selyse Baratheon had not changed a whit since the last time Tyrion had seen her, before Lord Arryn had died, when her lord husband had lived in King's Landing as Robert's master of ships. Tall as a man, thin, big-eared, big-nosed and bony, with a wispy moustache on her upper lip, Tyrion was no stranger to ugly women but Lady Selyse was truly remarkable by any standard. But he did not allow himself a moment of pity. Petty, mocking and prone to cruel comments behind the backs of the subjects of them, Lady Selyse was nonetheless not without a certain cunning, and with the power of the royal fleet she was not a woman to be taken lightly.

It did not surprise Tyrion that he was forced to come alone, as if he were a humble petitioner seeking Lady Selyse's ear. His knightly tail was here to send a message of his social stature, not to negotiate. _So be it._ There had been a whole host of visual tricks to make him look as though he were the weaker party, but nevertheless the Lannisters of Casterly Rock were nowadays more powerful than the Baratheons of Dragonstone. He had to remember that.

A handsome young herald standing before the high seat, purple-eyed and silver-haired like so many of the folk here with their dragonseed blood, announced, "Lady Selyse Baratheon, of House Florent, Lady Dowager of Dragonstone and Lady Regent of Dragonstone for the Lady Shireen Baratheon!"

Tyrion noticed that, with the direness of Lord Stannis's defeat outside Storm's End, Lady Selyse no longer chose to be addressed as a queen, at least when in his presence. That, he supposed, was something of a good sign, though not a great one.

Tyrion stood before the high thronelike seat where Lady Selyse sat, flanked by a dozen armed guardsmen, and at last he spoke. "My lady of Baratheon, greetings."

A sword lay, albeit still sheathed for the nonce, in Lady Selyse's lap. It was a sign, and not a promising one. "My lord of Lannister." She said no more. A murmur ran through the seats at the side. It was pleasantly warm, but somehow the air in the room was like ice.

Tyrion attempted to sound undaunted. "My lady, I have here a letter under the sign and seal of His Grace Joffrey of the House Baratheon, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, and his mother as Queen Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, to attest that I am here as the King's Hand and emissary to speak for them." He could not, of course, immediately speak his purpose. Protocol demanded elsewise. "I come with gifts to the goodly lords and knights and ladies of your court, as tokens of the esteem and warm regard with which His Grace the King holds you all."

The room seemed to relax somewhat. Tyrion called for servants, and they brought in the gifts that had been brought to the castle almost as soon as Tyrion and his retinue arrived, excluding those formerly intended for the Lyseni, Salladhor Saan, and his Myrish counterpart, due to their desertion.

The first gift, an exquisitely woven set of hunting tapestries, once King Robert's, to old Jon Farring, Lord of Swirlstone, went perfectly. For the second gift, Tyrion called, "Will Lord Celtigar step forth to receive his bounty from the king's grace?"

Unexpectedly, a ripple of chatter, and not an answer, came from the seats of the Great Hall. An answer came from the high seat. "He will not, my lord," said Lady Selyse Baratheon, "for he's naught but a common coward. Ardrian Celtigar left many of his men to die while he himself did not lift a sword in my lord husband's defence, pleading age. Once he saw that the battle was lost, he fled the camp and took his ships to Claw Isle, where they reside now, in defiance of his liegelady's call. He has broken the oath of fealty he swore to my lord husband and his heirs."

Tyrion was appalled at his mistake. "That is an ill tale indeed, my lady. Plainly the king's esteem was misplaced. I pray that justice will come to the traitor Celtigar swiftly, be it in this world or the next."

If not wholly, Lady Selyse seemed at least partially contented with that. "Quite so."

The other gifts were given without a comparable incident. Many men had died, as Tyrion had expected, though he had not known precisely who, but nothing else was quite comparable to Lord Celtigar's brazen desertion of the new Lady of Dragonstone. Tyrion was glad of it. It was plain to see that the Baratheons of Dragonstone had more power over their bannermen than most of the great lords in the Seven Kingdoms, more akin to House Lannister than to House Tyrell or House Tully. Another House's power might have been utterly broken, deserted by its vassals, after such a great defeat. He supposed that could be attributed to the royal fleet, which the late Lord Stannis had possessed thanks to his kingly brother's command, not the consent of his lords bannermen, so he had had a great source of power which did not arise from them.

Once courtesy had been satisfied and gifts had been given, Tyrion raised the matter for which he had come. He took in a deep breath. "My most gracious and honourable lady of Baratheon," he said, "your goodsister, Her Grace Queen Cersei, and your kingly nephew Joffrey extend their sincerest condolences for the foul murder of your lord husband, her lord goodbrother and the king's uncle, at Storm's End, at the hands of the rebel, pretender and kinslayer Lord Renly. In this time of grief we extend the hands of friendship and of unity. House Baratheon should unite and avenge this impious insult by Lord Renly to the laws of gods and men. To expedite his usurpation, Lord Renly has peddled malevolent lies which I shall not give the honour of a hearing in this hall, concerning the lawful wedded and bedded wives of both his elder brothers, both of whom have a greater claim to the Iron Throne than he ever will."

Whispers swept the court. There was much risk in mentioning the tale that Lady Selyse had cuckolded Lord Stannis with a lackwit fool, but mayhaps there would have been similar risk in ignoring it.

"To the misfortune of the realm," Tyrion continued, "this poison has reached the ears of some of the powerful. His Grace the King is outraged at this insult to the honour of his lady aunt, as much as to the honour of his mother, and is most determined to stamp out such treachery. There will, of course, be royal pardons and statements of conciliation to prevent any wrongheaded retribution for the unfortunate misunderstandings this disgusting deception has created."

Tyrion had hoped that statement might go unchallenged; he did not for a moment expect the Lady Regent of Dragonstone to believe it, but it was a means of avoiding a loss of face. It did not. "What brazen lie is this?" scoffed grey-bearded Lord Hendry Sunglass. "No man may accuse me of partiality to Lord Renly—" three of his sons had been slain outside the walls of Storm's End, as well as both of the sons of his elder-line cousin, Lord Guncer and Ser Roger Sunglass— "but all men know the Lannisters to be the origin of that foul lie against the honour of our lady. 'Tis not luck that it came about as soon as King's Landing heard of the truth about your so-called _king_ Joffrey from our dear and fallen lord. I knew Lannisters for liars but this is a new depth even for you."

"Peace, my lord," said Tyrion. "Even supposing that my House were the honourless curs you believe us all to be, why should _we_ have chosen to spread such filth? His Grace the King's claim to the Iron Throne does not require any slander; he is King Robert's eldest son and heir, as all men acknowledged and knew until this war began for the sake of Lord Renly's ambition. Lord Renly's, however, does require such. Why should it surprise you to hear that he is the source of both lies? He is the third-born of the brothers Baratheon. He has no right to the crown. In order to pretend he does, to expedite his loathsome ambition, he needs must disestablish the claims of the children of both of his elder brothers."

"Nonsense, Imp," said a handsome woman who had been introduced as Brienne Bar Emmon, Lady Dowager of Sharp Point, regent on behalf of her little son. She turned to her liege in appeal. "My lady, we know the Imp for a liar in one respect. The truth about the bastard Joffrey's parentage was first found by your lord husband, gods rest his soul. That should not be attributed to Lord Renly. And if he lies on the first matter, why should he be trusted on the second?"

"I don't believe so." All turned to hear this higher female voice. With a jolt of shock, Tyrion recognised it at once. "My lady, our fallen lord never discussed at length how he first heard the tale alleging Queen Cersei's adultery. If there had been a highborn source, he would surely have disclosed it to reinforce the tale, but there was not. He told Lord Arryn, not otherwise. Men of low birth are easily bribed with food and gold to waste on whores and suchlike; such folk cannot be expected to uphold the standards of nobility. We all admire your lord husband, my lady, but could he not have been deceived toward his death by some hireling in the service of Lord Renly? For in this if nothing else my lord of Lannister certainly speaks the truth: it is passing strange that a man with the ruthlessness and lust for power of Lord Renly should receive such good fortune from the gods as sordid tales to discredit the wives and issue of both his elder brothers and set them against each other, without himself having any hand in it."

Tyrion was taken aback by his own good fortune. He did not know most of the lords of the Narrow Sea by face, but few of noble blood who had spent any great length of time in King's Landing during Robert Baratheon's reign would have failed to recall such an illustrious personage as the Lady Helicent Velaryon. Though a Bar Emmon by birth, the goodsister of Lady Brienne, Lady Velaryon was of one of the most ancient Houses in the world, a House of the same dragon-blood as the Targaryens, with whom they had often wedded. The Velaryons of Driftmark were among the mightiest houses of the Narrow Sea, rivalled only by the now-fled Celtigars of Claw Isle and by their once-Targaryen, now-Baratheon overlords. If she were inclined towards King Joffrey's side, that was a great and unforeseen windfall for House Lannister, and a great part of the work of seeking Lady Baratheon's allegiance was already done.

"Lord Renly is a cruel man, my lady of Velaryon," declared Jon Farring, his white whiskers quivering, "but he is not to blame for all evils. 'Tis fortunate for him, yes, but that is no ground to allege conspiracy."

"Is it not, my lord of Farring?" Lady Velaryon asked him. "Lord Renly is a man of surpassing wickedness. His murdered brother, and your own valiant slain son and nephew Ser Gilbert and Ser Godry, and even your poor fallen grandson, brave Bryen, my lord, could attest to that. Do you believe that the Father Above, font of justice, and the Warrior, defender of right, would grant their favour to a man of that sort? I think not. What appears to be unbelievable good fortune is likelier to be the fruit of his malign scheming."

That reference to his relatives slain in the Clash of the Stags and to Lord Stannis had a powerful effect on Lord Farring. He still seemed to disagree, but remained silent, and so did Lord Sunglass and Lady Bar Emmon. Such was the palpable hatred with which Lord Renly was held in Lady Selyse's hall that almost nothing construed to be in his favour could pass muster, so even such a boldly false statement as this one could avoid challenge if opposition to it were made to appear as a moral defence of Renly. Tyrion admired Lady Velaryon and wondered at her reasons in equal measure.

"Thank you, my lady of Velaryon," Tyrion said with a deep bow. "Moreover, His Grace the King has heard tell of the wisdom, piety and charity of his maiden cousin, the Lady Shireen—" even with most homely girls one would say 'beauty', but with greyscale-struck Shireen that would seem like a jape or even an insult, and Tyrion dared not that— "and he has fallen deeply in love with her from afar. The Queen Regent and the small council have given way before his ardour. It is his desire and belief that there can be no more fitting queen to rule the Seven Kingdoms by his side and to bear many fine sons, that her line might be kings in the eyes of gods and men forevermore."

There was another round of frenzied whispers from the seats at the side of Dragonstone's court. Lady Selyse spoke over it. "So you come here to propose a full alliance between Houses Lannister and Baratheon, my lord? You would have me tie my fate to yours, and my daughter's hand to your king's?"

"No, my lady," Tyrion answered, "I come here to propose a renewal of the existing alliance between Houses Lannister and Baratheon, the alliance that deposed the Mad King and has given the Seven Kingdoms more than a dozen years of peace and plenty, replacing House Targaryen's failure. And I would have your daughter wed a boy of the noblest blood and the highest station, a boy who can make her queen and her children kings and princes and princesses. That is a fate to which she is already tied, for they are of one blood, Baratheon blood, however much Lord Renly may wish to deny it, and if Lord Renly triumphs, as he has so recently shown, he has no kingly virtues and will show no mercy to either, or to anyone. If he succeeds in usurping the Iron Throne from your nephew, he will murder him. You know what he did at Storm's End. Do you doubt it? And then, to secure his ill-gotten throne and a crown to which he has no right as long as his elder brothers' progeny live, I don't doubt for a moment he will murder your daughter too."

And there it was. The first part was merely a rewording, but the latter was the true reason for an alliance between King Joffrey and Lady Shireen Baratheon. Not because of anything to do with their birth, true or otherwise, or their parents or their reputation, but the simple fact that Lord Renly was a greater threat to both.

He had laid out Lady Selyse's choice. There was naught now but to see how she reacted to it.

"My lady, my lord of Lannister is wrong about Lord Renly," said Lord Farring. "Foul a man though he may be, he has never been known to kill a child."

"Which is more than can be said for House Lannister," added Lady Bar Emmon, with a glance at Tyrion.

Lady Velaryon looked as if she wished to speak but a male voice cut in above hers. "With respect, I disagree with my lady of Bar Emmon and my lord of Farring. 'Tis exactly in Lord Renly's nature. But 'tis in the Lannisters' nature too. Why must we choose between two evils?" Lord Sunglass rose. With the gout in his leg, it took visible effort. "I tell you all, I would sooner slit my throat a thousand times than bend the knee to Renly, but I trust your lord husband's word, my lady of Baratheon. Joffrey is no true king. I say there's a better way. The Imp makes it seem there is no choice but betwixt Joffrey and Renly, a bastard abomination and a kinslayer, but there is another king in the land. The King in the North! Why should you not seek a Stark alliance? King Robb is young and virile. He would make a good husband for your lady daughter. And recall the Battles of the Whispering Wood, and the camps at Riverrun, and Oxcross; 'tis said he has never fought a battle 'twas not a glorious victory. With your lady daughter by his side he has a claim to the Iron Throne. He can destroy the Lannisters with or without our strength; he has already come near to that. Lord Renly, meantime, came within an inch of losing a battle where he had the advantages of knights to levied peasants and of four men to one. The Young Wolf will cut him to shreds once he has put an end to House Lannister, and I say, good riddance."

Lady Velaryon tried to reply, but a cheer arose from the men and women seated. "The north! Stark! A Stark alliance!"

It took a while for Lady Velaryon to be heard, and by then it was plain to see the mood of the hall was against her. "My lord of Sunglass, my lady of Baratheon," she said, "Lord Stark may be valiant but he will never win this war. Lord Lannister is surely marching west with twenty-thousand men, more by far than Lord Stark's army there. Lord Stark has left all his foot behind him with Lord Bolton, like a boy playing at war who finds a host only of horsemen, swift but rare, as better for his game. 'Tis a fool's decision. Lord Lannister can attack either of the northern hosts and defeat them in detail, one and then the other. And even if Lord Stark were to defeat Lord Lannister, with them having ground down their hosts against each other, surely they would both fall to Lord Renly. No, my lords and ladies, Joffrey Baratheon may win this war, if he can hold King's Landing and let Lord Renly's host batter itself to pieces against the city walls, and Renly may win it if he can take the capital without losing too many, but Robb Stark never will."

"All this talk of wolves and roses and lions," Lady Bar Emmon said. "My lords and ladies, do you not recall what led us to this parlous state? I do. We tried to take part in this clash of kings. 'Twas ill indeed for us. I lost a son, a boy of four and ten who should not yet have been at war. Most of us here lost some such. I have only one son more, and I desire that he live. However awful a man Lord Renly is, that is for the gods to judge and take their vengeance; we have lost enough already. We cannot afford another round of killing. We are not the Reach or the westerlands with their inexhaustible armies. Our menfolk are valorous but not numerous. Perhaps the Lannisters will vanquish the Tyrells and perhaps the opposite, but in either case, I say, we should have no part of it. Why shouldn't we have a peace?"

That did not arouse a cheer, but from the quiet nods that abounded afterward, Tyrion feared it had even more support than Lord Sunglass's suggestion. That was ill news indeed. If Dragonstone sought an ally with which to make common cause and leant towards Winterfell, it could perhaps be convinced to choose Casterly Rock instead, but if Lady Selyse wished to retreat into isolation, despite knowing all that could be said of the risk posed by Lord Renly to her lady daughter, Tyrion saw little that could be used to persuade her otherwise.

The argument went on for many hours more before Lady Selyse gestured to her silver-haired young herald, who called a halt to court for the day. Her vassals and petitioners, animated with chatter, drifted slowly out the gates. Well beyond the dragon's maw that marked the entrance to the Great Hall, Tyrion stumbled as he felt a hand on his shoulder. Helicent Velaryon towered over him, though she was quite short and stout in figure. "My lord of Lannister, I would have words with you."

"My lady of Velaryon," he acknowledged, turning his face up to her. The almond-shaped eyes gazing intensely down at him, from above the level of her breasts near his head, were as dark brown as her hair, which she wore in exquisite curls. To his surprise, Tyrion had to suppress his own reaction.

"If I were you, my lord, I would look to those who listened to that debate—not all, of course, only men and women of substance—and I would consider not only those who spoke but those who chose not to speak in that debate. They, perhaps, may yet be swayed."

"My lady's counsel is wise," said Tyrion. He tried to think back to those of Lady Selyse's retainers whom he had considered significant enough to receive the choicest gifts to woo them. Only one name sprang to mind. "So you would have me speak to Lady Chyttering?"

"That fool? Not for a moment. Lord Chyttering fell in the Clash of the Stags and his son Lucos is held captive. As long as that is so, she'll never dare to offend Lord Renly. No, my lord, I spoke of my lady's favourite uncle, Ser Axell Florent."

Tyrion thought back to the round, burly, big-eared man with double chins who had sat near Lady Selyse, a seat of honour Tyrion had presumed the man had only received because he and his lady niece were of one blood. "Ser Axell has no keep, no lands, no bannermen, no great retinue. He has no power here but what Lady Baratheon chooses to give him, and with her present he is not much of a castellan any more. Why should he be held to be a man of substance here?"

"Because there is more than one substance," Lady Velaryon said with a faint twist of her lips upward. "Ser Axell served Lord Stannis as castellan of Dragonstone for near ten years of King Robert's reign, when he and his lady wife lived almost always in the capital. For near ten years he was regent in all but name of the dominions of the Narrow Sea. He acquired many courtiers here who came to follow his lead in that time, and the men-at-arms of this isle have spent near ten years accustomed to obedience. Aside from that, Lady Selyse trusts him as she trusts few others. Of her House, he chose to follow her to Dragonstone when no other did, neither of her other two uncles and not even her brothers."

"I understand," said Tyrion, his thoughts racing. It seemed Ser Axell would be a powerful ally indeed. "And I wished to thank you for your kind words, my lady. Whether or not I prevail, I shall not forget them. If House Lannister lives through to the end of this war, I assure you, there will be a handsome reward."

"Ah yes. 'A Lannister always pays his debts.' I've heard the saying before. I confess that I am glad of it, my lord, for there is a debt I would see paid."

 _So now it comes._ Truth be told, Tyrion had expected something of this sort. Women of Helicent Velaryon's importance seldom helped the likes of him, ugly men serving causes with little hope, out of kindness or on a whim. "Which is?" he said.

"My son Monterys has seen six namedays," said Lady Velaryon. "Now he, and not my poor fallen husband, is Lord of the Tides and Master of Driftmark. I rule on his behalf but there are many on Driftmark who would rather be mastered by a man grown than a woman and a boy; and there _is_ such a man. While my lord husband lived there was nothing and no-one I need fear—" for a moment, just a moment, she seemed almost fragile, before hardening further than ever before— "but he is gone, my lord, they took his head and waved it about on a sword-point as a standard, and I am all that remains."

"I see," Tyrion said softly. He did not bother with apologies which Lady Velaryon would surely know were insincere. "If Lady Selyse persists in the belief that even the eldest son and acknowledged heir of a king can be usurped of his inheritance, and his mother defrauded and dishonoured, by an ambitious uncle with a false tale of adultery, who or what shall stop another such uncle from disinheriting your son by dishonouring you?"

"That is truth, my lord, but not the whole truth. It is worse than you perceive. If Lady Baratheon refuses to submit to any of the three kings, her military position is so desperate that if one of her vassal Houses were to be usurped from a boy by a man full grown…? Why, I daresay she might even prefer it."

"Dear gods." Even Tyrion was taken aback at that. He supposed it was the natural consequence of Robert's brothers' breaking of the laws of succession. Regardless that Lord Stannis's accusation about Joffrey happened to be true, they had left chaos in their wake. "My lady of Velaryon, let me assure you, we in House Lannister shall do our utmost to prevent any such usurpation. Who is this villain of whom you speak?"

"'Tis my lord husband's bastard half-brother, Aurane Waters. My lord husband was always fond of him, and refused to send him away as I asked of him many a time. He never saw Aurane for what he is: a sly, ambitious creature who plays the boon companion to his trueborn sibling but reveals his true nature in his thoughtless cruelty to all whom he considers to be beneath him. So that is what I ask of you, my lord of Lannister. Keep my son in his rightful place, keep Aurane Waters in check, and you have my allegiance."

"I understand," Tyrion said with a bow. "Nonetheless you will have more than that, my lady, for what you have done for me today. I will see to it that you are protected from this ambitious bastard and that you are given your reward."

"I am glad of it," said Lady Velaryon with a half-smile. "Fare well, my lord."

"Fare well, my lady."


	15. Chapter 15

**TYRION**

Men-at-arms in the livery of House Baratheon accustomed to taking their orders from the old castellan of Dragonstone were plentiful in the castle, so there was little hardship in arranging a conversation. On the eve of the day he had attended Lady Baratheon's court, Tyrion dined in Ser Axell Florent's chamber, which, he noted without surprise, was larger and more opulent than his own.

Almost as soon as Tyrion put down the last succulent leg of lamb he had been chewing on, Ser Axell said, "What would you have of me, my lord of Lannister?"

That bluntness surprised Tyrion. _Is he truly so crude, or does he merely want me to think he is?_ He answered with a smile, "Why, ser, I daresay you know. The question is: what would you have of me?"

Ser Axell rested his hairy face on a hand. "What would I, then?"

 _Subtle as a hammer, this one._ "It is not usual for a brother to inherit his lord brother's seat at your age," Tyrion mused aloud. "Two men stand ahead of you, as well as Lord Alester's daughters, both of whose husbands are strong enough to protect their claims from any… alteration. And of course I would not accuse you of any ambition against your lord brother's heirs. But it is not unprecedented for a younger brother to inherit over his elder when the elder has only one son, without the ghastly toil of violence amidst the family."

He had Axell Florent's full attention now. Candlelight danced in his mismatched eyes as the larger man leant forward.

"It is oft said that before my own ancestor obtained the higher seat of Casterly Rock he was known as Ser Joffrey Lydden; but this is a half-truth, for he was indeed, but only for hours. In truth he was Lord Joffrey Lydden, of Deep Den. But it was desired that Deep Den and Casterly Rock should not be united, and his children would of course have a claim to the Lion Throne. And so, when he became King of the Rock, he forsook not only his name but his original seat. His younger brother, a certain Ser Justin Lydden, became the Lord of Deep Den in his place, and served him leally and ably without any dishonour to his name."

If the castellan were acting, he must be exceedingly skilful at it. Ser Axell pretended to be nonchalant, but Tyrion could see the tension in his arms.

"Do you ever tire of staying here in the cold and the damp and the dark? So many years of leal service, so little reward," Tyrion said. "Consider, then, what I propose for you. You know well your House's claim to Highgarden. I shan't insult your intelligence by repeating it to you. It so happens that Lord Tyrell has much displeased my kingly nephew, who, it so happens, is also named Joffrey. He has tied himself tightly to the usurper Renly's cause; most of Renly's strength comes from him; if he wins the Iron Throne for his unborn grandchild he will do it by stepping over my nephew's corpse, and that is a treason House Lannister cannot forgive. I am Hand of the King. My sweet sister, whose children the Tyrells mean to slay, is Queen Regent. My uncle commands the great host that defends the capital. My lord father commands a greater host still. And my nephew the king is three-and-ten; he will affix his seal as we instruct him. We require a new Lord of Highgarden, ser, and who better than your lord brother…? And if so, I wonder, who may be Lord of Brightwater thenceforth? It may be we'll award it to some valiant knight of no relation to you, one who's served us ably, as the gods know many of them have. If we give him Highgarden I doubt Lord Alester will protest overmuch. But if I speak for you…"

He trailed off. Sometimes, to leave a thing unsaid was the best of ways to say it.

"I see," the stout Florent said. "Truth be, I expected something of this nature. There's just one thing that stands in your way, my lord. You aren't going to win your war."

"Such confidence, ser," said Tyrion. "I fear it may be misplaced. The Stark boy has divided his host in twain, one horse, one foot. The foot he has left with Lord Bolton, the horse with himself, for like many boys he's fond of swiftness and too impatient for a slow march. Neither host is strong enough to defeat the greater one of my lord father. He can defeat them one after another. Lord Stark will not stay long in the west; he lacks the strength to take Lannisport or Casterly Rock. Meanwhile, the riverlords have been dispersed in all directions and Lord Tully sits in Riverrun with the remnants of his strength like a coward; they pose no threat of offence any more. Even were that not so, not all the strength of Stark and Bolton and Tully will suffice to break my lord father's host. Harrenhal is a strong fortress and well-provisioned, and it is not the only one my lord father has occupied. He rules from Harrenhal to Maidenpool and south along the God's Eye then along the Mudwash to the Blackwater. Do you imagine that Lord Stark can defeat such a host?"

"You speak of what may be, my lord," Ser Axell said. "I look to what is, and the truth is, you lions are losing this war. Yes, what you say is true, and it might be you're a better leader of men than your lord father, but that matters nothing. In the world that is, the Stark boy has won two great victories over Lannister hosts, once at Riverrun and once at Oxcross, both of them surpassingly decisive. Whole armies broken, thousands of men slain or put to rout… time was, there were three great western armies, now only one left! I care not for what advantages House Lannister appears to have in this war, or could have if it were to use them properly. If aught, that makes it worse. A House that keeps losing battles from a poor position can be said to be only unlucky. What should be said of a House that keeps losing battles when, as you've verily told to me, its opponent keeps making mistakes and it ought to win?" His words cut like a knife. "Misfortune is poor enough, but from the position you westermen started with, as strong as it was, your failures reek of incompetence."

"I see." Tyrion's lips were thin and pressed tight. _I ought never have come here._

"I think you do," Axell Florent said. "I regret to give such a rebuke, my lord, and there's no malice in my heart for you. But sometime, what's plain to see needs saying, or else a clever man can fool himself into not seeing it."

On his way to his bedchamber after that stinging and unproductive meeting, Tyrion felt the touch of a small hand in his pocket. He spun, cursing, but the boy or girl or whoever it was had already fled into the shadows. A moment later, he realised to his surprise that the weight of his velvet purse was still there. Nothing was gone. Fumbling around in the pocket, he noticed a small scrap of parchment.

That made him smile. _This may have become interesting._

He gave no sign of it while he returned to his allotted chamber. If it were anything like the Red Keep, Dragonstone's walls could be overflowing with eyes and ears. Once he was at his desk, penning a letter to his sister with a report by the low-burning candlelight, an activity quite unsuspicious, he took the scrap from a pocket and glanced at it.

 _Before fire. Place of night_ , it read. _If you are wise, you will not be seen and you will not be alone._

Tyrion took the sender at his word. Six of his knights, all born into the same minor House from the crownlands, escorted him into the courtyard of Dragonstone Keep before the break of dawn. He dared neither to send many fewer for fear that the sender might be an enemy, nor to send many more for fear that his purpose might be discovered. The knights had their squires with them, except one, the squire of the knight Tyrion had summoned to his quarters, who had stayed in Tyrion's quarters in Tyrion's clothes after he had left them to call some other knights. A dwarf could never pass for a normal man but he could pass for a child if he were not looked at too carefully, especially when dressed warmly for the night. If the gods were good, Ser Axell Florent's men believed that the brothers and cousins of House Stockford were going on a visit together and had not the faintest notion that Tyrion had left his bedchamber at all.

The sender, who it was plain to see had been worried that the message might be intercepted, had been clever enough to use two meanings at once. A reader who missed it might think that the 'place of night' was a brothel, especially given Tyrion's reputation, but if 'before fire' were included in the phrase then its true meaning became clear: the place where Aegon the Dragon had stayed, the night before he went to conquer Westeros with dragonfire.

The gates to the Conqueror's Sept were rendered in the shape of two rearing dragons, their teeth and claws so intertwined in the centre that it looked impossible for them to smoothly separate when the gates opened, and yet they did. It was not a large sept—there were dozens in the vast breadth of Casterly Rock and many of them, not just the elder one, were greater—but save perhaps for the Great Sept of Baelor, and the Starry Sept which had seated the High Septon before Aegon's Landing for the gods only knew how many years, Tyrion had to admit to himself that he had never seen a sept which surpassed it in magnificence. The Conqueror's Sept was wrought of the same black-and-bright stone as the rest of the castle, with windows of marvellously smooth and detailed images from the _Seven-Pointed Star_ formed from a dazzlingly delicate array of every imaginable shade of coloured glass. The black-and-bright ceiling was high and vaulting and the floor was covered with mosaics. At this time, the Keeper of the Conqueror's Sept, who Tyrion had heard went by the name of Barre, was still asleep. Some lesser septon, a beardless fellow who could not have seen more than fifty namedays, was humming early morrow prayers to his silent congregation, most of whom were folk of the Faith themselves, while the overpowering scent of incense and the soft sweet voices of the choir-boys filled the air. They made no move to acknowledge the presence of the knights and squires from King's Landing, though they must have noticed they were there.

Small though it may have been compared to the realm's greatest septs, the Conqueror's Sept was nonetheless too large and too full to recognise the sender with ease. Tyrion had little idea where to go for a while until he recalled his earlier thought. _Double meanings!_ 'If you are wise, you will not be seen and you will not be alone' sounded like nothing but a warning, but… _if you are wise_ … _if you are wise_ … _wise_ … _wise_ … that could mean something else as well. The one of the new gods most closely associated with wisdom was no god at all, but a goddess.

Tyrion left the great central hall of the Conqueror's Sept and headed to the statue of the Crone, which, following tradition, stood at a corner between two of the sept's seven outer walls. The sculpture was exquisite, carved from the masts of the ships that had carried the exiled Targaryens from Valyria to Dragonstone. The Crone's eyes were made of pearl and her long hair shone with silver, but the statue was otherwise plain, though wrought with extraordinary skill; it was as if a real elderly woman had been turned to oak. It made for a striking contrast with the Lion Sept in Casterly Rock and the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing, both of which were full of marble and gold.

There was nobody there, save for the acolytes.

"What do we do?" one of his knights hissed at him.

"We're in a sept. What do you think?" Tyrion whispered in reply. He knelt before the Crone's altar and muttered some words about granting victory to King Joffrey and success to their delegation.

He remained there on his knees in silent prayer until one of the true squires nudged him with a quiet "My lord—!" Tyrion looked up and saw a cloaked woman entering the Crone's hall, with a knight at either side. She was approaching them, her eyes flicking between the knights.

Tyrion rose and drew near to her. He allowed his hood to droop, just for a moment, and spoke under his breath: "A good morrow to you as well, my lady of Chyttering."

Danelle Chyttering, Lady Regent of Fenmouth, almost jumped. She drew nearer, and knelt by Tyrion's side, before the Crone's altar.

"My lord of Lannister," she said in an answering whisper. "I apologise for the furtive nature of this meeting but I had little choice if I wanted to speak with you discreetly. All the servants in the rest of the keep are used to following the castellan, and I assure you he reports everything of interest that they hear to his niece."

"I confess myself unsurprised at that," said Tyrion, still speaking softly. "May I take it that you have a request to make of me?"

"I do, my lord, but 'tis not for these ears."

Tyrion flicked a hand. "Do not go far."

Once the six knights of House Stockford and five squires were an acceptable distance away, as well as Lady Chyttering's own escorts, they could speak in peace at the feet of the Crone.

"What would you speak of, my lady?" Tyrion asked. He was surprised to hear from her. In addition to what Lady Velaryon had said, her House's seat was mid-way up and on the western coast of Massey's Hook. The Chytterings of Fenmouth were even closer to the stormlands and thus to the heart of Lord Renly's power than the Bar Emmons of Sharp Point, whose behaviour seemed to be governed by their fear of Lord Renly.

"My husband fell outside Storm's End, my lord. So did his brother, the old Lord Chyttering. He and old Lady Chyttering were very close. She threw herself into the Fenflow when she heard of the deaths of her husband and son, the silly fool; she won't do any good with her body in the river. The truth is, her son isn't dead. Lord Renly sent us another raven to say that Little Lucos survived the battle and was taken captive, though wounded severely. He seeks no ransom in gold; he demands that we bend the knee."

"I see," said Tyrion. "But you won't, will you?"

"Will I?" There was a playful lightness to her voice, but nothing frivolous whatsoever in those bright blue eyes.

Tyrion took a guess and drove it in like a dagger. "You do not fear Lord Renly will kill Lucos Chyttering," he said. "You fear Lord Renly will spare him. For if he returns, how will Fenmouth fall to your son?"

"You _are_ skilled in this game." A smile lit Danelle Chyttering's fair and lovely face. "I knew you were the type for it." For a moment Tyrion wondered at that, then: _But of course. The riddle._ "These are my terms, my lord. Support my little Rickard as the Lord of Fenmouth over his grown cousin and Fenmouth is yours. If you do not…? Why, then I shall join my dear Lady Brienne, who shall doubtless be surprised and delighted to see me, and I will endeavour to persuade my liegelady against you. But we have no need for such unpleasantness. If I help you to achieve what you desire for your nephew, you will help achieve what I desire for mine."

 _His death, you mean._ "I see," Tyrion said. "My lady of Chyttering, you remind me deeply of my sweet sister."

Lady Chyttering was still smiling. "I am sure she's grateful for the compliment, my lord."

"You have my word, and the word of House Lannister," Tyrion said with a slight sigh, "if I have yours to speak for me, to the best of your ability. I would like to have two friends of significance among Lady Selyse's bannermen, rather than one."

Lady Chyttering clasped his hand and looked to the goddess's statue. "I will," she solemnly swore. "But I am afraid you are mistaken. You only have one."

"Then you have my apologies for calling you a friend."

"Oh no, my lord, you need not. We are friends." Lady Chyttering gave him another beautiful smile. "'Tis Helicent Velaryon who is not your friend and never will be when she speaks in private, no matter what she claims in public. Let me explain to you as to why."

Tyrion wondered whether there would be any honesty in this account. Lady Velaryon had been born into House Bar Emmon, and the Houses from the north and south of Massey's Hook had hated each other for thousands of years.

"It is not for nothing that each Lord Velaryon calls himself Lord of the Tides. They have always viewed themselves as the rightful masters of the Narrow Sea Houses of Westeros, second only to the royal Houses, the stags and before them the dragons. In his time of life, my lord goodbrother kept eyes and ears on Dragonstone, as every lord of sense did. A frequent visitor to the Lady Shireen was young Monterys Velaryon. They are of an age, or near enough to it, and Lord Stannis had no other child. If the Velaryons could achieve it, Dragonstone and Driftmark would be united in the next generation. Such a force would put their old Celtigar rivals to shame, and give them mastery over the other Houses of the Narrow Sea unto the end of time."

Tyrion could see at once why that would make Lady Velaryon oppose a royal marriage for Lady Shireen. _If she seeks to thwart me, why would she…? But of course._ "And she speaks in favour of alliance," he said, "because she cannot reveal to her liegelady that in her advice she is so flagrantly pursuing the ambition and interest only of her own House, not for Lady Shireen."

"Indeed," said Lady Chyttering.

"But I spoke with her," Tyrion went on, "and she spoke of the threat of her lord husband's half-brother, Aurane Waters. What do you have to say to that?"

"Aurane? I'm afraid that is a transparent lie. His humours run hot; he would be quite appalling as a cold-hearted schemer. He is often cruel to other men, but he always seemed fond of his lord brother and especially his nephew, now Lord Monterys. He's spent more time by far with the boy than his father did. Indeed, he and Monterys and Lady Helicent are so close, 't has often whispered that mayhaps Monterys is not Lord Monford's son at all."

"And what proof do you have of this?"

"Ask anyone who has ever laid eyes on them together. There are hundreds on this island. Aurane Waters may not be the manner of man for an outside man to trust, but he would never raise a hand against his family."

"I will," Tyrion vowed. "But one thing you have said makes little sense. Why should Lady Velaryon argue for me? What if, on the strength of her support, Lady Baratheon agrees on the marriage after all?"

"Why, my lord, you think my liegelady will agree?" Lady Chyttering laughed softly. "I will do what I can, of course, but that she did not foresee; and she does not expect my liegelady to agree. She dares support you only because she is confident that you will fail. The moment she believes that you may not—mayhaps as soon as I support you—I assure you, she will change her tune swift as the wind."

 _And isn't that a grim thought?_ The Velaryons of Driftmark were the mightiest of Selyse Baratheon's vassal Houses, unmatched by any other since the desertion of House Celtigar. It was never bad to have information, but in a way Tyrion almost wished that he had not come. Since the meeting at Lady Baratheon's court yesterday, he had at least had the consolation that House Velaryon was on his side. It may be that Danelle Chyttering, cold and treacherous, was his ally now… but she was hardly a woman to depend on, and every other person of significance on this godsforsaken island was arrayed against him.


	16. Chapter 16

**CATELYN**

The noise reached them first. It was a horrendous din, a clamour of shouts and curses and the screech of metal. Next there came the smell. The scent of death and rot was unmistakeable and overpowering; it took a gargantuan act of self-control for Catelyn to avoid retching. Only then, after they ascended a lip of the land in the rolling ground of the Vale of Ranimon, did they see it.

The grass of the valley that comprised the eastern way to Storm's End had been turned to mud, but there was a reddish tinge to much of it on a part of the ground ahead that inclined upward. There was no other trace left there in the central, lower part of the valley, but on the harsher, rockier sides that commanded the approaches to the upward piece of land where most of the killing had clearly taken place, it was a different story. That land was far too rough for wagons, and even horses would not have been happy. Sweating, cursing men on foot were slowly cutting through the expanse of shrubbery, revealing pits and removing ugly four-pronged artifices of metal that she had heard were called crow's-feet. Every now and then a man would cry out in pain as he fell to one; if so, sometimes his fellows would take him away; at other times there was nothing that could be done to save him. The object of this exercise was to find bodies. What must have been at least many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of armoured corpses—it was hard to make a reckoning—littered the Vale of Ranimon. Cuts in the land showed that pits had already been dug for the lowborn men, but not only the common-born had died on this battlefield. A cluster of silent sisters and of maesters with their charts of bloodlines and heraldry were gathered on some lower ground where most of the corpses had been heaped, with strong-backed young men to help them at their work and a few archers to shoot away the cloud of vultures, which were ever-present, circling above. The archers were nowhere near numerous enough. They were inspecting the bodies, looking for identifying features to tell who the dead men were. From the look of it, they would be here long.

A sense of bone-crushing despair descended on the mind of Catelyn Stark. _We failed_ , she thought. _One or two days faster and we would have reached this place in time, but our pace was not enough. Lord Renly and Lord Stannis have fought and paid a price in blood too terrible to contemplate. One of the brothers Baratheon is dead, the other attrited, and the only true victors are the Lannisters. The queen must be laughing._

Catelyn's escorts, both her own men and the outriders in service to Lord Caron who had found her several days' ride away, did not linger here. It was not the sort of place where anyone would wish to linger. They hurried through the valley of death and made their way to the castle.

The single tower of Storm's End, surrounded by its curtain wall of pale grey stone, stood almost impossibly high and proud. Blood had been shed here, too, straight outside the castle, though plainly not near the same scale as the greater battlefield behind them. The crowned stag of Baratheon, black on gold, reared triumphant on the standards streaming from that House's ancestral seat. Catelyn thought darkly that it would speak more truly if it were replaced by a sigil of one stag on a field coloured with its own blood, exhausted, standing over the corpse of another.

The outriders took them to the gates, which were opened for them. Inside, the Lord of Storm's End awaited them. Renly Baratheon was surrounded by his lords bannermen and his Rainbow Guard, with armour cleaned but faces grim. Catelyn could not help but notice that they numbered only four; the red, orange, blue and purple cloaks remained, but the green and yellow, and Ser Loras Tyrell their leader, did not.

"My lady of Stark," said Lord Renly. Even when discussing his intention to sit out and watch men die if House Stark would not bend the knee to him, or the cannibals whom his brother had hanged when his Tyrell friends had besieged this very castle in fealty to Aerys Targaryen, he had retained a certain cheer, an undisturbed veil of easy charm. Now his face could have been carved from stone. _His first battle has changed him_ , Catelyn thought, _a blind man could see it._

"Your Grace," Catelyn said, with a curtsy for courtesy's sake.

Lord Renly's voice was icy cold. "I have no doubt you knew what was to occur. I have doubt you expected to like the sight of it. Why is it that you have come here?"

"To inform you, Your Grace," Catelyn replied. "You and your brother."

There was a sharp intake of breath at that.

"I bore tidings," she said. "Proof enough that the words concerning the queen and the Kingslayer are true. Enough, I hoped, to ward off battle and bring you and your lord brother to an accord, whereby you could defeat the Lannisters and then settle the issue of claims and kingship. It scarce matters now."

"The latter part of that is true, for certain. My brother died in battle yesterday morning. His body will be sent with a ship of silent sisters to his home with his widow and his daughter, where he belonged, on Dragonstone. Would that he had remained there. His bid for the Iron Throne died with him. There can be no dispute that I am the Lord of Storm's End and the male head of House Baratheon, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, and I will remain so. Tell your son this: the Iron Throne will be seat to myself or Joffrey, the man who slew Eddard Stark. That is the choice he faces. He should make it wisely."

"And what do you offer him, Your Grace?"

"My offer has not changed since we spoke last, though perhaps you will be persuaded by the fact that my position has. He may be my Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. He may even be liegelord over the riverlands and call himself a king if it please him much. My nephew did a grievous insult to House Stark; I recognise that blood runs hot and feelings are high. But I expect his fealty, his loyalty, his service to me as his liegelord in turn, for him to me as his father to Robert. Give me those and I will be content. Deny them, choose to be a rebel against the one true king, and I will destroy him as I have destroyed Stannis."

The absolute dichotomy in Lord Renly's words—death or service—was stark. _Before that battle, he was still a hard man_ , thought Catelyn, recalling their quiet conversation when she had begged leave from the feast at Bitterbridge, _but his was a fist of steel artfully hidden in a silken glove of courtesy and charm. Now the glove is gone. There is only steel._

"For such a thing I must consult with my son, Your Grace. I cannot swear fealty on my son's behalf, not when he has never heard of it, nor of the reason."

A certain humour, dry and cold, found its way back into Renly Baratheon's voice. "I never expected you to."

 _He does not mean to have an accord_ , Catelyn realised. _Mayhaps he never did, not since the very moment he knew Robb hadn't sent me here to pledge allegiance._ Helplessness gripped her like a vice. Little Rickon, left at Winterfell, a mere child at the age when his mother was needed. Sweet Bran, climbing like a squirrel, whom she had not seen awake since the day he fell. Her poor daughters, different as night and day but both of them beloved, in the capital under the power of the Lannisters. And now Robb, who had sent her here. Would she fail him too? _Am I doomed to fail all my children?_

"Your Grace—" and now her voice was almost pleading— "I do not know what you would have me say."

"There is not much," Lord Renly agreed. "You have my word, I will see to it that you are brought in safety to Riverrun."

Catelyn had scarcely known there could be such despair. Six weeks she had been riding here, pushing the horses as hard as she dared, hard as they could over such a great distance off-road without killing them—more than that, all the three turns of the moon since she had ridden out from Riverrun—and yet once she was here she found herself with little she could say. _What should I tell him? Condemn him for the death of his brother? That would be true, and he deserves it for certain… but how can I?_ Above all else she was a mother, and she must be strong for Robb's sake. Screaming, crying, shouting, telling Renly of the dire consequences of his heedless rush to get to grips with his brother—for it was that haste, his choice to head to Storm's End with only men ahorse, leaving his host of foot in Bitterbridge, that had ruined her plans to arrive here before his army and mediate between him and Lord Stannis—but what good would that do? Certainly not for Lord Stannis, who was beyond all help now— _may the Father judge him justly_ —and not for her son.

"Your Grace," Ser Colen of Greenpools was saying, "where should I meet you then, once I return?"

The hard edge to Renly's voice softened. "Not you, ser. You have served me faithfully and well, beyond what any could have expected of you as an outrider, from Bitterbridge to Berryhill and then here to Storm's End. 'Twould not be meet to expect you to come hence to Riverrun and back again. No, I would that you rejoin your comrades in arms here. I will send one of my own household knights in service directly to Storm's End, with Baratheon men-at-arms, to escort Lady Stark to Riverrun. And I have just the man; Ser Richard of Handon, I think, would do admirably. He fought for my brother in the rebellion, a steady hand and a swift sword."

The grizzled knight bowed low. "Your Grace, your will be done."

After taking her leave from Renly's royal presence, as her group's horses had been driven past exhaustion, Catelyn exchanged them for others from the stables of Storm's End. She and her companions drank Renly's water and wine and ate his meat and salt and bread for a few days more, to refresh their strength after the long journey. With the amount of time already wasted, going southward from Riverrun to Bitterbridge then back northward until Berryhill whence they had come hither to Storm's End, she had little desire to tarry longer still by taking a circuitous route. Instead she rode through the heart of the war, through fertile riverlands turned to blackened desert by the fury of the Lannisters, and each night her scouts brought back tales that made her ill.

When they had drawn near to Riverrun, a scout spied them riding through a low valley from a hill. Catelyn was glad to see the silver eagle sigil of House Mallister.

When she asked the Mallister scout to lead them to her uncle, he said, "I cannot, m'lady Stark. Ser Brynden is in the west with the king."

"I see." It did not surprise her to learn that Robb had struck at the heart of Lannister power; clearly he had been contemplating just that when he sent her away to treat with Renly. "Who commands you now?"

"Martyn Rivers, m'lady, the bastard of the Crossing."

The name was familiar. She had met Rivers at the Twins; a baseborn son of Lord Walder Frey, half-brother to Ser Perwyn. "And where is he camped?"

"Days to the east, m'lady. No foes here. Most o' m'lord Tully's scouts are there, watching the Lannisters. Few of us remain so near to Riverrun. Those do, we report to m'lord hisself."

"Take us to the castle, then," she commanded. She mounted her horse again, and they set out at once.

This old scout was not the most loquacious sort. That pleased Catelyn well. She had no wish to bandy words. She preferred to be at a warm hearth in Riverrun, safe and sound.

She did have two questions, however. "How fares Robb in the west?"

"M'lady…? 'Twas more than two moons past." It seemed to surprise the outrider that she had asked. "The king vanquished a host of westermen at a place men call Oxcross, a short way beyond the Rock. Their lord commander, Ser Stafford Lannister, was slain."

Ser Wendel Manderly gave a _whoop_ of pleasure, but Catelyn only nodded. Tomorrow's trials concerned her more than yesterday's triumphs.

"And my brother, is he with him?"

"No, m'lady, Ser Edmure holds Riverrun."

Catelyn had presumed that the Tully whom the scout had spoken of, holding the castle, was her lord father. She had not known that her family's men had taken to calling her brother "m'lord". _Gods grant him the strength to do so_ , she thought, grimly, _and the wisdom as well._ She was more doubtful of the latter.

They forded the Red Fork that day, upstream of Riverrun where the river made a wide loop and the waters grew muddy and shallow. Between the Red Fork and the Tumblestone they made for the safety of Riverrun. Along the journey, the smallfolk went placidly about their work. These lands had been ravaged at the orders of the Lannisters, but it had been moons since there had been any westermen here, since her son's victories had driven them away, and though winter may come, it had not come yet. Left, to some extent, in peace, they were rebuilding their lives as best they could. Not for them the need for vengeance; they simply counted themselves lucky to be alive and moved on. In a mad moment she almost thought she envied them.

As she drew nearer to the castle, Catelyn saw from a distance that something dark was dangling against the walls of Riverrun. When she rode close, she saw dead men hanging from the battlements, slumped at the ends of long ropes with hempen nooses tight around their necks. The crows had been at them so severely that they scarcely looked like men at all, near-devoured skeletons with scraps of stringy rotting flesh, but their crimson cloaks still showed bright against the sandstone walls.

"They have hanged some Lannisters," Hal Mollen observed.

"A pretty sight," Ser Wendel Manderly said cheerfully.

"Our friends have begun without us," Ser Perwyn Frey jested. The others laughed.

 _If they have slain the Kingslayer, then my daughters are dead as well._ Catelyn spurred her horse to a canter. Hal Mollen and Robin Flint raced past at a gallop, halooing to the gatehouse. The guards on the walls had doubtless spied her banners some time ago, for the portcullis was up as they approached.

Edmure rode out from the castle to meet her, surrounded by three of her father's sworn men—great-bellied Ser Desmond Grell the master-at-arms, Utherydes Wayn the steward, and Ser Robin Ryger, Riverrun's big bald captain of guards. They were all three of an age with Lord Hoster, men who had spent their lives in her father's service. _Old men_ , Catelyn realised.

Edmure wore a blue-and-red cloak over a tunic embroidered with silver fish. From the look of him, he had not shaved since she rode south; his beard was a fiery bush. "Cat, it is good to have you safely back. Not that I doubted, of course, you must understand… but you have been away moons longer than the king or I expected, so we feared for you, under the circumstances."

The abrupt reversal of her journey back to Riverrun with the news she had heard at Berryhill, turning her to Storm's End ere she headed to her birthplace again, was reason enough for that.

But one of her brother's phrases stuck in her head. "What circumstances?"

Edmure and his escort traded looks. "Some discussions are best held in private. Ser…?"

"Richard," the quiet, dark-haired stormlander knight said. "Of Handon, long in service to Storm's End."

"You have my thanks, then, Ser Richard, for seeing my sister here. But your duty is done. Utherydes, please ensure Ser Richard and his men-at-arms are given refreshments and rooms for the night ere they return to the stormlands. I would not have it said that House Tully treated guests rudely."

The steward bowed. "It will be done, my lord."

 _My lord._ That simple thoughtless common phrase, when used by a loftier personage by far than the nameless old scout, sent a chill down Catelyn's spine. Whether or not Lord Hoster still lived, the folk of Riverrun, great and small, had become accustomed to the matter of who gave commands here.

"How fares our father?" she asked him, as he led her through their castle afoot. She had given her horse to an urchin from the stables.

"One day he seems stronger, the next…" He shook his head. "He's asked for you. I did not know what to tell him."

"I will go to him soon," she vowed. "Has there been word from Storm's End since Lord Stannis was slain? Or from Bitterbridge, where Lord Renly left his host of foot?" No ravens came to men on the road, and Catelyn was anxious to know what had happened behind her.

"None that you do not know, only news of the battle and a demand for allegiance," Edmure said, grimly, "but there has been word of else. Not here."

Catelyn accepted that. Waving a hand up at the bodies, she asked, "Who are these men you've hanged?"

Edmure glanced up uncomfortably. "They came with Ser Cleos when he brought the queen's answer to our peace offer."

Catelyn was shocked. "You've killed _envoys_?"

"False envoys," Edmure declared. "They pledged me their peace and surrendered their weapons, so I allowed them freedom of the castle, and for three nights they ate my meat and drank my mead whilst I talked with Ser Cleos. On the fourth night, they tried to free the Kingslayer." He pointed up. "That big brute killed two guards with naught but those ham hands of his, caught them by the throats and smashed their skulls together while that skinny lad beside him was opening Lannister's cell with a bit of wire, gods curse him. The one on the end was some sort of damned mummer. He used my own voice to command that the River Gate be opened. The guardsmen swear to it, Enger and Delp and Long Lew, all three. If you ask me, the man sounded nothing like me, and yet the oafs were raising the portcullis all the same."

This was the Imp's work, Catelyn suspected; it stank of the same sort of cunning he had displayed at the Eyrie. Once, she would have named Tyrion the least dangerous of the Lannisters. Now she was not so certain. "How is it you caught them?"

"Ah, as it happened, I was not in the castle. I'd crossed the Tumblestone to, ah…"

"You were whoring or wenching. Get on with the tale."

Edmure's cheeks flamed as red as his beard. "It was the hour before dawn, and I was only then returning. When Long Lew saw my boat and recognised me, he finally thought to wonder who was standing below barking commands, and raised a cry."

"Tell me the Kingslayer was retaken."

"Yes, though not easily. Jaime got hold of a sword and slew Delp and Poul Pemford and Ser Desmond's squire Myles. It was a bloody mess. At the sound of steel, some of the other red cloaks rushed to join him, barehand or no. I hanged those beside the four who freed him, and threw the rest in the dungeons. Jaime too. We'll have no more escapes from that one. He's down in the dark this time, chained hand and foot and bolted to the wall."

"And Cleos Frey?"

"He swears he knew naught of this. Who can say? The man is half Lannister, half Frey, and all liar. I put him in Jaime's old tower cell."

"You say he brought terms?"

"If you can call them that. You'll like them no more than I did, I promise. The hostage exchange was unbalanced but at least worthy to be considered—her opening offer was the Kingslayer and two of her cousins for your daughters, your lord husband's sword, Lord Cerwyn and the heirs to Oldcastle, White Harbour and the Karhold—whereas the greater proposal was wholly unacceptable."

"And what was that?"

Edmure gave a snort of derision. "The queen wishes us to tamely bend the knee, with a few Lannister men to live in our castles and report to her every week, lest we play her false. I'm not a fool. She only wants time to fight Lord Renly without needing to fight us. Doubtless, if we were to accept and the Lannisters were to defeat him, they'd be singing a very different tune indeed once he was out of the way. It astonished me to hear such; I doubt she's fool enough to believe we would ever accept it."

Once they were secluded in her lord father's study, Ser Robin Ryger spoke. "My lady, can you tell us what you know of Lord Stannis's death? Lord Renly's ravens were less than forthcoming."

 _They wouldn't be._ "Lord Stannis was slain in battle." Catelyn felt very old and very tired, with the knowledge of futility. "He had a tale—I don't doubt you have heard it—of the queen and the Kingslayer, of incest and adultery and treason. 'Tis a true one. The Lannisters tried to murder my son Bran, first by pushing him and then by sending a man with a dagger to open his throat, and only then did I understand why. The queen and her brother stayed behind at Winterfell that day, when Ned and Robert and the other men were out hunting. Bran must have chanced upon them. He always did have a love for climbing that wretched broken tower no man's set foot in for many years, but he never fell before… But 'tis no matter. I rode back as soon as I heard Lord Stannis's tale when I came upon a keep that men call Berryhill, at the same time as I heard he'd laid siege to Storm's End. But I came too late. Lord Renly marched to Storm's End with only his host of horse, and as I had spent a week going the wrong way, even as an army to a small group they outpaced us. When I arrived, Lord Stannis had been dead a day and a half. He and Lord Renly fought a battle in the Vale of Ranimon, this Clash of the Stags. I came across its field and saw it myself. Lord Stannis had some prepared ground with earthworks and crow's-feet and rocky approaches, and Lord Renly's losses were hideous—thousands, certainly, though I could not say how many. But Lord Stannis and his host are gone, slain almost to a man, and Lord Renly will surely have already begun his march to rejoin his host of foot, and thence to the capital."

"And what word of alliance?" asked Utherydes Wayn. "Lord Renly's host is great, but he depends too much on the Tyrells for his taste, I would presume. Surely 'twould please him to make common cause with us."

"Little. Lord Renly talks handsomely but he is quite unbending. He made a splendid show of his generosity, but he is willing to grant concessions only in words. He demands Robb's fealty. That, I cannot give to him. He is a harder man than he seems, I tell you. He has no desire to intervene in a war between us and the Lannisters if neither will bend the knee to him. He prefers to sit back and let us both die, so that he can pounce on the remains."

"I see," Edmure said.

"What word of Robb?" asked Catelyn. "I heard that he won a victory at Oxcross, but I know little more."

"He did destroy the host that was gathering beyond the Rock, when that wolf of his found a goat track that let his army slip past the Golden Tooth unseen by the watchtowers of the Lannisters," said Edmure, "but that was more than two moons past, Cat. His host of horse lacks the men and siege engines to take Lannisport or Casterly Rock, so he has been doing unto the westerlands as the westermen did unto us. Seizing mines, plundering towns, burning farms, capturing cattle… you may have noticed the speed of our recovery here, and that's in no small due to what we've taken from the westermen. But Lord Tywin couldn't let such go unanswered; his own vassals would have his head if he sat tight in Harrenhal while their homes burnt."

Catelyn wondered whether she looked as pale as she felt. "What happened, Edmure? What did Lord Tywin do?"

"We all thought he would march west, but he didn't. With much of his army sent to reinforce King's Landing, he must have felt he didn't have the strength to break across the Red Fork against opposition. He'd still outnumber us, even if I called father's bannermen here, but father always said you need at least two men to one, and better three, if you wish to cross a river or take a holdfast 'gainst a prepared opponent, and Lord Tywin's advantage is not strong enough for him to dare it. So he didn't go west. He went north."

"Lord Bolton," Catelyn murmured.

"Yes. You know, Lord Bolton reassembled his army after his defeat at the Green Fork, and marched south to occupy the cross of the kingsroad and the high road of Arryn, and, beyond it, the ruby ford of the Trident. His host was a dagger at Lord Tywin's back. Lord Tywin couldn't leave his holdfasts south of the Trident, Harrenhal foremost among them, lest he lose them to Bolton's army straight afterward; and if he loses them, he'll be unable to march south and keep King's Landing from Lord Renly, which he surely knows he will have to do, with his brother's host outnumbered by Lord Renly's mayhaps as many times as half a dozen to one."

"'Was'," Catelyn noted, with rising dread. "Does Lord Bolton still have an army?"

"Half of one," her brother said bluntly. "Locked up in a bunch of petty holdfasts they found to the north of the Trident, cowering from Lord Tywin's wrath. Why Robb gave the man a battle command I'll never know; 'tis the greatest reverse we've suffered since the Battle of the Green Fork, also led by Bolton. He's alive, I'm told, though soon he might not be. A raven came from Robett Glover, near a moon and a week ago. He is in command now."

"Good gods." _May they forgive me._ She knew why Roose Bolton had been given a command; she had steered Robb towards that path herself, to stop him from appointing the Greatjon. Ned had never had an ill word for Lord Bolton's skill at command. Had he been wrong? Or was it just that any man could lose two battles against Tywin Lannister? Catelyn hoped it was the latter, if only so that she had not misled her son so greatly. "Half… good gods… how was the defeat so severe?"

"Whatever slime lies in Lord Tywin's humours elsewise, he _is_ cunning, I will give him that. More of his men than not were afoot, and they bore a heavy baggage train, numberless wagons moving off-road over boggy ground. Nothing seemed of note when it took him two and a half weeks to march from Harrenhal to the Trident, but it should. Long before he came upon the river, mayhaps even ere he marched from Harrenhal at all, he detached a great part of his horse under Ser Addam Marbrand and sent them ahead of the bulk of his host, and to the west of him. Men ahorse against foot, they greatly outpaced the main Lannister army, and though Bolton burnt the bridges save only for those that he held, they must have had time enough to raft across the river. Robb took away near all the northern horse, so Bolton's host had almost naught but foot; they lacked sufficient outriders to ride in many directions far enough beyond his camp. Glover thinks Marbrand was two days' ride or more to the west of Bolton on the north bank, and didn't near him till Lord Tywin sent a rider to give a signal. 'Twas planned, all of it. The main body of Lord Tywin's host attacked them on the south bank of the Trident, and at first all seemed well. They had pikemen, archers, spears. They were retreating 'cross the ruby ford in good order. Then Marbrand's detachment sped out of the woods and hammered them from the other side. The result was chaos. Lord Tywin pursued across the river and for a day afterwards, exhausted men afoot chased by mounted knights. Only the exhaustion of the western knights prevented worse. Robett Glover tells me 'tis hard to say but he believes about three-thousand northmen were slain, nearly all of those in the chase and the rout, and another two-thousand deserted or were isolated on the wrong side of the river. Truth be told, 'tis a miracle he managed to keep together as many men as he did. _There's_ a man worthy of command, I tell you. Lord Tywin's losses are harder to guess, but Glover thinks one or two thousand westermen fell in the attack on Bolton's pikes and bows and earthworks on the south bank ere Ser Addam Marbrand sprung at the north."

Catelyn tried to think of the scale of that defeat. Roose Bolton had had ten-thousand men. He had lost half of them, and mayhaps soon his life too. "Can Glover hold?"

"A few moons mayhaps, but not for long," said Edmure. "There aren't many castles in the Seven Kingdoms that can long hold an army of five-thousand men, so they're in a group of smaller ones. Glover foraged as much food as he could as quickly as he could from the surrounding lands, but he didn't expect to be in those keeps enduring a siege. Those holdfasts won't have the provisions to feed an army to withstand as long as it otherwise could. They _cannot_. How can they, when Bolton had no notion that he should prepare them? I called the banners as soon as I heard and meant to march to his succour, but Robb sent a raven from Ashemark. He insists that I remain at Riverrun. He thinks we have not the numbers here to meet Lord Tywin in the field, and he thinks Lord Tywin will have to come west."

"He will," said Catelyn. "Ashemark, you say? That is the stronghold of House Marbrand. How do you think a man like Ser Addam, young and bold and noble-born and unaccustomed to tastes other than the taste of victory, will respond to winning a great battle for his liegelord, only to see his own lord father's seat captured by the enemy while that same liegelord doesn't lift a finger for it? And he's not the only one. The Lannisters won't keep the allegiance of the lords of the west if they let their homes be plundered and their lands go to ruin. Let Lord Tywin stay with Glover, and let his army melt away like heavy winter snows come summertime… or let him come to the westerlands, so, whatever plan Robb has, Lord Tywin is playing into his hands."

"No man can outcompete Lord Tywin in a game of cruelty, Cat," Edmure said. "I have many ears and eyes in the lands east of the Mudwash and south of the Trident, and I dare not tell you what I've seen there. It would make you sick. Since the Battle of the Banks my lords have been half mutinous at me. To name but a few, Lord Bracken's sent no fewer than four ravens asking me whether I mean to call the banners and march east, and I suspect Lord Blackwood only hasn't since he's heard Lord Bracken has. And those are lords with the strength of Tully and Riverrun between their seats and the Lannister host. Those lords closer to them are worse. Even Frey, far as he is, has been sending me anxious letters complaining there is too little Tully strength between the Twins and Lord Tywin, and you do _not_ want to know what Mooton has been calling me. There are more. There are times I fear they'll all take up arms and march to fight the Lannisters without me, royal command or nay."

The last point was a jest. The rest was not. "Robb is our king, Edmure," Catelyn said. "Have faith in his plans and in him. For all the ill words you have heard, Lord Tywin will have heard as many. We can have patience. He cannot play this waiting game forever."

"I hope so, Cat," said Edmure, though his tone said he still doubted it. She bade him goodbye and went to find their father.

Lord Hoster Tully was much as she had left him—abed, haggard, flesh pale and clammy. The room smelt of sickness, a cloying odour made up in equal parts of stale sweat and medicine. When she pulled back the drapes, her father gave a low moan, and his eyes fluttered open. He stared at her as if he could not comprehend who she was or what she wanted.

"Father." She kissed him. "I am returned."

He seemed to know her then. "You've come," he whispered faintly, lips barely moving.

"Yes," she said. "Robb sent me south, but I hurried back."

"South… where… Is the Eyrie south, sweetling? I don't recall… oh, dear heart, I was afraid… have you forgiven me, child?" Tears ran down his cheeks.

"You've done nothing that needs forgiveness, father." She stroked his limp white hair and felt his fevered brow. The fever still burnt him from within, despite all the maester's potions.

"It was best," her father whispered. "Jon's a good man, good… strong, kind… take care of you… he will… and well born, listen to me, you must, I'm your father… your father… you'll wed when Cat does, yes you _will_ …"

 _He thinks I'm Lysa_ , Catelyn realised. _Gods be good, he talks as if we were not married yet._ Her father's hands clutched at hers, fluttering like two frightened white birds. "That stripling… wretched boy… not speak that name to me, your duty… your mother, she would…" Lord Hoster cried as a spasm of pain washed over him. "Oh, gods forgive me, forgive me, _forgive_ me. My medicine…"

And then Maester Vyman was there, holding a cup to his lips. Lord Hoster sucked at the thick white potion as eager as a babe at the breast, and Catelyn could see peace settle over him once more. "He'll sleep now, my lady," the maester said when the cup was empty. The milk of the poppy had left a thick white film around her father's mouth. Maester Vyman wiped it away with a sleeve.

Catelyn could watch no more. Hoster Tully had been a strong man, and proud. It hurt her to see him reduced to this. She went out to the terrace. The yard below was clear and peaceful, and beyond the walls the rivers flowed clean and pure and endless. _This is his castle, and those are his rivers, and soon he will return to them for his last voyage._

Maester Vyman had followed her out. "My lady," he said softly, "I cannot keep the end at bay much longer. We ought send a rider after his brother. Ser Brynden would wish to be here."

"Yes," Catelyn said, her voice thick with grief.

"And the Lady Lysa as well, perhaps?"

"Lysa will not come."

"If you wrote her yourself, perhaps…"

"I will put some words to paper, if that please you." She wondered who Lysa's "wretched stripling" had been. Some young squire or hedge knight, like as not… though by the vehemence with which Lord Hoster had opposed him, he might have been a tradesman's son or baseborn apprentice, even a singer. Lysa had always been too fond of singers. _I must not blame her. Jon Arryn was twenty years older than our father, however noble._

The tower her brother had set aside for her use was the very same that she and Lysa had shared as maids. It would feel good to sleep on a featherbed again, with a warm fire in the hearth; when she was rested the world would seem less bleak.

But outside her chambers she found Utherydes Wayn waiting with two women clad in grey, their faces cowled save for their eyes. Catelyn knew at once why they were here. " _Ned_?"

The sisters lowered their gaze. Utherydes said, "Ser Cleos brought him from King's Landing, my lady."

"Take me to him," she commanded.

They had laid him out on a trestle table and covered him with a banner, the white banner of House Stark with its grey direwolf sigil. "I would look on him," Catelyn said.

"Only the bones remain, my lady."

"I would look on him," she repeated.

One of the silent sisters turned down the banner.

 _Bones_ , Catelyn thought. _This is not Ned, this is not the man I loved, the father of my children._ His hands were clasped together over his chest, skeletal fingers curled about the hilt of some longsword, but they were not Ned's hands, so strong and full of life. They had dressed the bones in Ned's surcoat, the fine white velvet with the direwolf badge over the heart, but nothing remained of the warm flesh that had pillowed her head so many nights, the arms that had held her. The head had been rejoined to the body with fine silver wire, but one skull looks much like another, and in those empty hollows she found no trace of her lord's dark grey eyes, eyes that could be soft as a fog or hard as stone. _They gave his eyes to crows_ , she remembered.

Catelyn turned away. "That is not his sword," she said, in lieu of seeing and thinking of it more.

"Ice was not returned to us, my lady," Utherydes said, as if she did not already know. "Only Lord Eddard's bones."

"I suppose I must thank the queen for even that much."

It seemed her father's aged steward did not know what to say to that.

"I am grateful for your service, sisters," Catelyn said, "but I must lay another task upon you. Lord Eddard was a Stark, and his bones must be laid to rest beneath Winterfell." _They will make a statue of him, a stone likeness that will sit in the dark with a direwolf at his feet and a sword across his knees._ "Make certain the sisters have fresh horses, and aught else they need for the journey," she told Utherydes Wayn. "Hal Mollen will escort them back to Winterfell, it is his place as captain of guards." She gazed down at the bones that were all that remained of her lord and love. "Now leave me, all of you. I would be alone with Ned tonight."

The women in grey bowed their heads. _The silent sisters do not speak to the living_ , Catelyn remembered dully, _but some say they can talk to the dead._ And how she envied that…

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Some of the sharp-eyed among you may have noticed that, in the most recent Arya chapter, Arya saw Lord Tywin's army leaving Harrenhal and going northward. You may also have noticed certain changes to Lord Tywin's disposition, such as the position of Ser Addam Marbrand.

I expect the Battle of the Banks to raise some questions, so I'll answer some of them pre-emptively.

What caused Lord Tywin to make this decision in _Knees Falling_ when he didn't in canon?

Let's look at the background of this campaign. Lord Tywin reacted to Robb's victory over Jaime by retreating to Harrenhal, a nice strong defensive position. He thus hoped to force Robb into a devil's choice: first option, leave the Lannisters in control of much of the riverlands unchallenged, able to reave there to their heart's content, which would cause his army to dissolve around him as his vassals lost confidence in his willingness to protect them; second option, march past Harrenhal and try to take back the rest of the riverlands, thus leaving a large army in his rear able to attack him; third option, try to take a large and well-defended castle by storm and doubtless take thousands and thousands of casualties and probably fail anyway. None of those options were good ones. Robb took a fourth choice, one that Lord Tywin didn't expect: invade the westerlands, thus forcing Lord Tywin to react (which the Lannisters didn't anticipate because they didn't know about Robb having Magic Plot Powers to circumvent their defences, in the form of Grey Wind). Leaving Harrenhal is not a good decision from a purely strategic perspective, but sometimes political considerations trump strategic considerations. This is not an insult on my part. Strategy is subordinate to politics because war is not fought for its own sake, it is fought to achieve aims, in Lord Tywin's case keeping Joffrey on the Iron Throne and preserving the position of House Lannister; war is the continuation of politics by other means. Lord Tywin is not magically immune to the same political pressures that weakened Robb "the King Who Lost the North" in canon and forced him to return to the north to defend it from the ironmen. This is a feudal polity we are talking about. Lord Tywin commands his vassals' loyalty and receives their taxes and in return they are under his protection. If Lord Tywin appears to be unable or, worse, unwilling to fulfil his end of that social contract, the westerlords won't fulfil their end either. So he has to stop Robb from ravaging the westerlands. (All of this is as canon so far.)

Lord Tywin must then choose how he should respond. In canon, he marched westward with his army, in order to relieve the westerlands directly. That was a risky strategy. Lord Tywin's army outnumbered Ser Edmure Tully's, but not by very much (only about twenty-thousand westermen to eleven-thousand rivermen, i.e. about two to one). Edmure had some good terrain for defensive tactics, with plenty of time to prepare a defence, and he used it well. Two to one in favour of the attacker isn't really good enough when you're assaulting prepared fortifications. It was worth a try, especially since Edmure had a previous record of military incompetence, but not even Edmure managed to lose this battle. And in fairness to Lord Tywin, I should note, he knew that this was a risky choice. He didn't just rush in, as Jaime did at Riverrun. He probed Edmure's defences, made sure not to commit himself, and withdrew in good order once it became clear that he wasn't going to be able to cross the Red Fork successfully.

In _Knees Falling_ , however, he's sent away four-thousand of his men under the command of his brother. He now outnumbers Edmure only by about three to two. That isn't enough to even _try_ an assault against prepared defences; it's no longer worth the risk. So, instead, he takes an inferior choice (from the perspective of achieving his political goal, which, we must remember, is to soothe the discontent of his bannermen whose homes Robb is attacking). That choice is to attack Lord Roose Bolton's army. This is actually flattery of Robb, in the sense that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Lord Tywin hopes that, by ravaging a much greater proportion of the riverlands (which he is able to achieve by defeating the Stark army to his north), he can stir up discontent among Robb's vassals in the same way that Robb is doing to him, and he hopes that Robb's vassals' willingness to remain obedient to an overlord who's refusing to help them while their homes burn will break before his vassals' obedience does—especially the riverlords, who haven't had a Stark as their overlord for thousands of years unending, as the westerlords have had a Lannister, and who aren't as scared of Robb's wrath and retribution as the westerlords are of Lord Tywin ever since the fall of Tarbeck Hall and Castamere. We'll see whether it works out for him. However, this is poorer at reassuring his own bannermen that he's a strong leader, willing and able to protect them, than his canonical choice to march straight to the westerlands and confront the armies ravaging their lands; the victory will reassure them for a while, but if Robb keeps ravaging the westerlands and his strategy fails to force Robb away, they're going to get angrier and angrier. That's why he didn't do it in canon. However grand this victory may seem, it's an inferior choice from that perspective.

Why did Lord Tywin win the battle?

Let me get one thing out of the way. It is _not_ because Lord Roose threw the battle on purpose. I don't follow the interpretation that everything would have gone wonderfully for the Starks if only people hadn't been so beastly to them and if anything goes wrong for them it must be because of treachery, not because of any bad decisions on their part. It's perfectly understandable that the Battle of the Green Fork could have been lost without any treachery. Roose Bolton betrayed Robb in canon because the Lannisters won the war (after the Battle of the Blackwater there was no realistic way the Starks or Stannis could have won against the power of the Lannister-Tyrell alliance; they simply didn't have enough men; they couldn't win even if their enemies were led _really_ incompetently) and Robb wanted to keep fighting on. Indeed, I daresay, if Robb hadn't been in such a dire position, he wouldn't have been betrayed. It was a case of rats fleeing a sinking ship.

Now I've said what the reason isn't, let me say what it is. This is the flip side to Robb's success in his battles against Ser Jaime Lannister's army. Robb's choice to split the northern host into an almost-exclusively infantry army (with a tiny number of cavalry) and an all-cavalry army was a bold decision, and I don't mean that in a wholly flattering way; it gave great rewards and took great risks. The victories over Jaime were the reward. This was the risk. Basically, Lord Tywin used his cavalry in a manner that wasn't amazingly inventive or unpredictable; it was just ordinary, sensible, standard use of heavy cavalry, using the advantage of surprise and the weight of a charge against an unprepared infantry decision; but Lord Roose didn't have cavalry, because Robb took almost all the northern cavalry with him, so he couldn't counter it. If Lord Roose had had cavalry, Ser Addam Marbrand's detachment wouldn't have been able to cross the river and remain undetected as long as they did, because Lord Roose would have had enough cavalry to have more scouts on horseback, who can go further in a day and still return to the camp than an infantryman can. Therefore the northmen would have been prepared for the attack of the western cavalry on the north bank, with earthworks and pikes and suchlike. Well-prepared infantry can inflict a heavy toll even on heavy cavalry, as Renly Baratheon's vanguard found out to their sorrow earlier in the story. (Believe it or not, Renly's plan against Stannis in this story was drawn straight from canon. Yes, Renly really was as stupid as that. If he hadn't had such a vastly superior initial position, with knights trained and clad in expensive armour against some poor conscripted fishermen _and_ a four-to-one advantage in numbers, he would have lost.) But I digress. So the Battle of the Banks in _Knees Falling_ was the product of Robb's strategic mistake in canon. (Well, I say mistake. I'm not sure whether it would have been a better choice for Robb to keep his army together, or indeed to split it into more balanced forces. If he hadn't had an all-cavalry army capable of moving so quickly, he might not have been able to achieve such surprise against Jaime Lannister's army. But whether or not it was the best choice he had available to him, it's undeniable, if we are to be reasonable people, that it was an imperfect choice.) Tywin Lannister didn't do this in canon because there was never a time when it was the best possible choice; before he heard of Robb's invasion of the westerlands, the sensible thing to do was to remain in Harrenhal in his nice strong defensive position; afterwards, he chose to march westward to relieve the westerlands, not to march northward to defeat Roose Bolton.


	17. Chapter 17

**ARYA**

When Arya awoke after dawn, she did not leap up at once and head for her messages. She nestled in her bed of old straw, her knees curled up against her chest, her neck crooked, her back pressed against the hard stone of her niche under Kingspyre Tower. It was not much by the standards of the featherbeds at Winterfell, but compared to the work of daytime at Harrenhal and, beforehand, the hardship of the road, it felt almost like comfort, and Arya had learnt long ago not to discount the value of a good rest.

She stayed there, without opening her eyes, until Pinkeye came. "Up, up, you dirty lazy laggards," he cursed them all, shaking them, "we don't have all day."

Arya knew that. It was Pinkeye himself who didn't. He woke late and slept early, which was a welcome gift in a taskmaster.

She sprang up, light-footed, nimble, before Pinkeye's bad breath and strong hands could reach her. Bleary-eyed, he blinked at her, twice, before turning grumbling away towards another of the servants.

For breakfast, Arya took bread and a thin, blotchy soup of barley. Pinkeye had similar, but with ale too, even in the morning. Mebble was his true name, but he was called as he was for his runny eyes.

Arya delivered her messages quickly, but not so quickly as she had before. Pinkeye was not so harsh a taskmaster as Weese. Weese always knew where you were. Pinkeye always knew where his ale was, but that was as much as could be said of him. He would notice if you didn't do any work, but he did not pay such strict attention to time. Besides, though there were still hundreds of soldiers in the castle, there were far fewer than ever before. Lord Tywin Lannister's host was gone, and even a large garrison took much less looking after.

That gave Arya time to dawdle between her messages and fetchings and attendances, time she had never had with Weese. She gazed out at the courtyard and the great lands outside from the towers, she scurried about to eavesdrop on the chatter of the men-at-arms and servants, and sometimes she even had time to wander to the godswood and practise her needlework, though only seldom.

It was during one of these little intermissions, after drawing some water for baths and before heading back to Pinkeye to be given her next errand, that she overheard it. "…all sweaty, he was," one of the older serving maids was saying, "with his horse looked half dead, and the red was dried blood, I'd stake my life on 't."

Quiet as a mouse, Arya crept closer.

"What did he say?" another serving girl asked excitedly.

"Don't know," the first admitted, with some reluctance. "I wasn't close enough to him and Ser Amory. But it must have been important. Ser Amory went to get the maester, I'd say, to send ravens, soon as he heard it, then sent me to get Ser Gulian for a meeting." Ser Gulian was the leader of the Hornvale men-at-arms Ser Flement Brax had left to serve in Ser Amory Lorch's garrison. "And the blood wasn't very dark; I don't think it was an old cut. There's been a battle, there must have been, a big one."

The maids oohed and aahed. With some reluctance, Arya darted away. Carrying water was a hard task, as it was so heavy, so she couldn't hurry and do it more quickly than was expected of her as she oft could with others, and even Pinkeye would realise that something was amiss if she took _too_ long.

Arya ran several more errands that day, fetching and carrying and sending messages. After sunset, she made her way back to her resting place beneath Kingspyre Tower, awaiting dinner and an end to the day. She could almost taste what she was about to do next. She did not want to learn about the battle in short, misunderstood snippets, as she had learnt about Stannis Baratheon's wife in the Eyrie, her hopes falsely raised and then dashed against the rocks. She wanted to hear it clearly, straight from the horse's mouth.

But Pinkeye came up to her as soon as he saw her coming. "Weasel! Tell Rob there was a dead rat was crept in the Brax men-at-arms' ale. Need another barrel. See to it it's done."

"But—" _It isn't fair._ Arya had not expected a task so late. If she waited too long after dinner, Ser Amory's meeting would be ending.

"But?" Pinkeye snarled. "I'm in no habit of being answered back to, girl. Now get on with it or I'll beat you bloody!"

She had no choice. Arya sprinted to the brewhouse. Tuffleberry, the old brewer, had gone away to serve Lord Tywin's army, as many of the servants had. The new master of the brewhouse, Rob, she scarcely knew.

By the time she had seen the ruined barrel replaced, the sky had turned a blackish blue. Arya returned to her niche, moving quietly, and took a look at the sleeping quarters. Pinkeye was deep in slumber, snoring, with wine-coloured spit running down his chin. It was as she had expected—it happened every evening once Pinkeye had dined—but she had wanted to be sure.

Arya did not go to bed that night. Instead, she left the other servants to their sleep and walked away. She could go where she would. The garrison numbered no more than three-hundred men, so small a troop that they were lost in Harrenhal, and many of them were often far away, foraging. The Hall of a Hundred Hearths was closed off, along with many of the lesser buildings, even the Wailing Tower. Ser Amory Lorch resided in the castellan's chambers in Kingspyre, themselves as spacious as a lord's, and Arya and the other servants had moved to the cellars beneath him so they would be close at hand. While Lord Tywin had been in residence, there was always a man-at-arms wanting to know your business. But now there were only a hundred men left to guard a thousand doors, and no-one seemed to know who should be where, or care much. The freedom made her feel daring. _Barefoot surefoot lightfoot_ , she sang under her breath. _I am the ghost in Harrenhal._

It was easy to come near to Ser Amory's chambers on the floor below, though she dared not climb further. Hearing voices, Arya hastened her steps, seeking to listen to them.

Then suddenly they became much louder, and she almost bumped into Ser Gulian himself, descending a spiral stair. She stumbled backward.

Behind Ser Gulian, Ser Amory Lorch's piggy little eyes fixed themselves upon her. She was too late; it was plain to see that the meeting had ended. "Girl!" he said, and she dreaded the sentence he might pass for wandering so late. "Take more care." There was a sudden pain, and she fell backward, her cheek burning. He had _hit_ her. She had almost forgotten what it was like. Pinkeye was no Weese. He was forever threatening to whip the bloody hide off this one or that one, but Arya never actually knew him to hit.

"Run along to the kitchens and fetch a maid with another tray of those tarts from this morning. I am quite fond of them."

The pain persisted, but she was overcome with relief. "Yes, my lord," she said, and ran away. She had expected worse. She dared not grant him the opportunity to see her face, lest he realise that she was not often to be found residing in this part of the tower, or, worse, recognise her from her time in company with Yoren. And she knew the way to the kitchens well.

The kitchens were asleep with the rest of the castle, but not fully. Even in the black of night, the kitchens were never still; there was always someone rolling dough for the morning bread, stirring a kettle with a long wooden spoon, or butchering a hog for Ser Amory's breakfast bacon. Tonight it was an older man she did not know.

Arya crept unseen to Hot Pie's snug warm sleeping place in the cavernous lofts above the ovens and shook him awake. "Arry—" he began to say, until she pressed a hand to his mouth.

"Shh," she hissed.

"What is it?"

"Ser Amory wants a tray of tarts, like some he was given this morning. He likes them."

Hot Pie hesitated, then turned to someone sleeping near him, a girl who had had mayhaps one or two more namedays than Sansa. "Liane!" he called quietly, shaking her.

The girl woke. Once he had explained it to her, she said, "A whole _tray_? Just for Ser Amory?"

"Yes," said Hot Pie, either missing the point or purposefully ignoring it, "so we'd better be quick."

They descended to the kitchens. Arya watched them cook with cheese and nuts and fruit and pastry. When they came out, still hot from the oven, their smell was so delicious that her mouth watered.

"Can I have one?"

"No, stupid!" the girl hissed at her. "Ser Amory will notice if there are crumbs due to one missing and he'll have us whipped."

"I'll carry them up," Hot Pie said. "Thanks for helping."

"No," Arya said, "he said a maid."

Hot Pie eyed her sceptically. "Will he care?"

"He said a maid," Arya insisted, "and I don't think he likes people not doing as he tells them." She remembered Ser Amory well, with a hot hate. She would never forget the death of Yoren.

"I'll bring the tray to Ser Amory," the girl said. "Go back to sleep; I'll see you tomorrow."

When Hot Pie had thanked her and gone to sleep, the girl asked Arya to direct her to Ser Amory's chamber. They went up the stairs, high up Kingspyre Tower, where the castellan lived. Arya shrank back at his door, drawing a curious look from Liane. She did not want to let him see her face. It would be ill indeed if he recognised her from Yoren's company.

The door opened. Arya hid behind it. "Well, girl, come in," came the voice of Ser Amory. It was lower than usual.

Peeking in, Arya saw the maid set down the tray of tarts on Ser Amory's table. Then he grabbed for Liane.

The kitchen girl shrieked, high and clear. "Shut up, wench," the knight said, and hit her across the face so hard that an angry red mark appeared there. Then he tore at her shift. Crying, she tried to run, but Ser Amory came after her in two great strides, far longer than her own, and caught her with an easy lunge. He tore more of her clothing and threw her on his bed. Then Arya had to leap away as he pulled the door shut with a loud crash and bolted it. When it was clear that he had gone, Arya did not go back to press her ear to the door. She did not need to. She just stood there, frozen in place. That was more than close enough to hear Liane's screaming and crying, Ser Amory's deep breathing and rasping grunts. _I—I fetched her—I—I brought her here—for this…_

Finally, when one instant they had been frozen, at the next it seemed that Arya's legs were free. She could not let herself hear any more. She fled.

Hot Pie's face was furious the next time she crept into the kitchens at night. "How dare you?" he hissed at her.

"I didn't know—"

"Liane was _hurt_ , Arry. _Badly_ hurt. I helped you, I woke her because she's my friend, she helped you and you got her hurt."

"It was Ser Amory, Amory Lorch, Hot Pie, he killed Yoren, he's a bad man, him, not me, I didn't know—"

"You say it now. You knew he killed Yoren. You knew he was a bad man," Hot Pie told her bitterly. "Go. Don't come back. I never want to see you again."

For the next week, more than a week really, Arya fulfilled her tasks with a sense of dull dejection. Hot Pie was _wrong_ , it _wasn't_ her fault, but he thought it was, she knew that, and he would never change his mind. She had liked visiting him in the kitchens. It was just her and Gendry now, of those who had left with Yoren, and Gendry never slipped her a piece of bread as Hot Pie sometimes did.

One day, trumpets sounded at the castle, and men hurried to the gates. Having heard the warhorn and the sound of the portcullis being lifted, Arya watched them from a window in Kingspyre Tower, high above. It was an army that was coming, a large army, with hundreds of knights and wagons and thousands of men afoot. It did not stretch as far in all directions as Lord Tywin's enormous host; she judged it to be nearer in size to the earlier one that had left Harrenhal for King's Landing with Lord Tywin's brother, which at the time had seemed inconceivably great. But the banners were not ones she recognised. There were no lions of Lannister, just a sun floating above a golden triangle in a bright blue sky.

Ser Amory rode out of the gates to greet the newcomers. When their leader took off his helm to reveal a head of thinning but still fine brown hair, Arya recognised him as Leo Lefford, Lord of the Golden Tooth, but no matter how much she strained, she was too far away to hear what he and Ser Amory said.

In disgust, Arya abandoned her window and went downstairs for a closer look. When she did, however, she almost wished she hadn't. She recognised the sigils of some of the men escorted into Harrenhal by Lord Lefford's host at spearpoint: Manderly, Flint, Mormont, Wull, Umber, Karstark. _The prisoners are father's men_ , she thought. _Robb's men, now. They're northmen, and friends._ She didn't like to think what that might mean.

Arya watched and followed as hundreds and hundreds of Lord Lefford's men-at-arms escorted the captive northmen into the dungeons. Angry, helpless, she had little idea of what to do, till it occurred to her. At the armoury, a deep orange glow shone through the high windows. She climbed to the roof and peeked down. Gendry was beating out a breastplate. When he worked, nothing existed for him but metal, bellows, fire. The hammer was like part of his arm. She watched the play of muscles in his chest and listened to the steel music he made. _He's strong_ , she thought. As he took up the long-handled tongs to dip the breastplate into the quenching trough, Arya slithered through the window and leapt down to the floor beside him.

He did not seem surprised to see her. "I don't think you should be here, girl." The breastplate hissed like a cat as he dipped it in cold water. "What was all that noise?"

"Lord Lefford's come back with prisoners, I saw them. They're northmen, my father's men. When Lord Lefford goes, you have to help me get them out."

Gendry laughed. "And how do we do that?"

"They're down in the dungeon. I watched, it's the one under the Widow's Tower, that's just one big cell. You could smash the door open with your hammer—"

"While the guards watch and make bets on how many swings it will take me, maybe?"

Arya chewed her lips. "We'd need to kill the guards."

"How are we supposed to do that?"

"Maybe there won't be a lot of them."

"If there's _two_ that's enough to catch the likes of us. You never learnt nothing in that village, did you? You try this and Ser Amory will kill you." Gendry took up the tongs again.

"You're _afraid_."

"Leave me alone, girl."

"Gendry, there are hundreds of northmen, hundreds. I couldn't even count them all. That's at least as many as Ser Amory has, and maybe more. Well, not counting Lord Lefford. We just have to get them out and we can take over the castle and escape."

"Well, you can't get them out, no more'n you could save Lommy." Gendry turned the breastplate with the tongs to look at it closely. "And if we did escape, where would we go?"

"Winterfell," she said at once. "I'd tell mother how you helped me, and you could stay—"

"Would m'lady permit? Could I shoe your horses for you, and make swords for your lordly brothers?"

Sometimes he made her so _angry_. "You stop that!"

"Why should I wager my life for the chance to sweat in Winterfell in place of Harrenhal? You know old Ben Blackthumb? He came here as a boy. Smithed for Lady Whent and her father before her and his father before him, and even for Lord Lothston who held Harrenhal before the Whents. Now he smiths for Lord Tywin, and you know what he says? A sword's a sword, a helm's a helm, and if you reach in the fire you get burnt, no matter who you're serving. Lucan's a fair enough master. I'll stay here."

"The queen will catch you, then. She didn't send gold cloaks after Ben _Blackthumb_!"

"Likely it wasn't even me they wanted."

"It was too, you know it. You're _somebody_."

"I'm a 'prentice smith, and one day might be I'll make a master armourer… _if_ I don't run off and get myself killed." He turned away from her, picked up his hammer once more, and began to bang.

Arya's hands curled into helpless fists. "The next helm you make, put _mule's ears_ on it in place of bull's horns!" She had to flee, or else she would have started hitting him. _He probably wouldn't even feel it if I did. When they find who he is and cut off his stupid mulehead, he'll be sorry he didn't help._ She was better off without him anyhow. He was the one who got her caught at the village.

But thinking of the village made her remember the march, and the storeroom, and the Tickler. She thought of the little boy who'd been hit in the face with the mace, of stupid old All-for-Joffrey, of Lommy Greenhands. _I was a sheep, and then I was a mouse, I couldn't do anything but hide._ Arya chewed her lip and tried to think when her courage had come back. _Jaqen made me brave again. He made me a ghost instead of a mouse._

She had been avoiding the Lorathi since Weese's death. Chiswyck had been _easy_ , anyone could push a man off the wallwalk, but Weese had raised that ugly spotted dog from a pup, and only some dark magic could have turned the animal against him. _Yoren found Jaqen in a black cell, the same as Rorge and Biter_ , she remembered. _Jaqen did something horrible and Yoren knew, that's why he kept him in chains._ If the Lorathi was a wizard, Rorge and Biter could be demons he called up from some hell, not men at all.

Jaqen still owed her one death. In Old Nan's stories about men who were given magic wishes by a grumkin, you had to be especially careful with the third wish, because it was the last. Chiswyck and Weese hadn't been very important. _The last death has to count_ , Arya told herself every night when she whispered her names. But now she wondered if that was truly the reason she had hesitated. So long as she could kill with a whisper, Arya need not be afraid of anyone… but once she used up the last death, she would only be a mouse again.

And then she knew. _Of course._

With Lord Lefford's army here, oxcarts always trundling in and out of the gates, there was twice as much work that needed doing, more than twice really, but Pinkeye wasn't good at knowing where everybody was at each time and what needed to be done. Weese would have had her breathless, but with Pinkeye she alternated between similar breathlessness and long, idle inactivity. In that time, she searched tirelessly for Jaqen H'ghar. But he was not to be found in the bathhouse, nor any of the usual places he had lingered in with other men who were no longer in Harrenhal to be found.

It was noon two nights after Lord Lefford's army had arrived when there was a sudden tumult. Arya froze and backed into an alcove while what must have been hundreds of men-at-arms headed to the dungeon under the Widow's Tower. She had been loitering near the prisoners, trying to get a look at the number of guards and hear their names to tell Jaqen, and feared discovery, but they did not heed her. The tall grown men with their spears and their swords paid a young serving girl no more attention than they would a small grey mouse.

One of them exchanged some words with the guards, and they opened the gates. Calmly, without hurry, the prisoners stood up. _Has there been a betrayal? Are they escaping?_ Arya wondered. There was no fighting. The men-at-arms escorted the prisoners out of the Widow's Tower and into the courtyard.

Only then did Arya understand. _No! No! But they weren't supposed to go away with the army, they can't, I didn't find Jaqen yet, they can't, they can't! It's not fair!_ But she could do nothing. The men joined with others, hoisting up the banners of House Lefford, far outnumbering their prisoners, far too many for a stupid little girl. The Golden Tooth army with its captives, refreshed and restocked at Harrenhal, departed from the castle as hot tears burnt in her eyes.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** There is something that I should note, for those who don't remember much of _A Clash of Kings_. In canon, Arya used her third wish from Jaqen H'ghar to help Roose Bolton to take Harrenhal and became his cupbearer. For obvious reasons, this has not happened in _Knees Falling_.


	18. Chapter 18

**TYRION**

It was a pleasure to be on the other end of this spectacle. Tyrion lounged in his chair in the stands at the side of the Great Hall of Dragonstone—hardly a seat of honour, far as it lay from Lady Baratheon's high chair, but at least a comfortable one—as he watched the newly arrived petitioners come through the central space of the vast dragonlike hall towards the Lady Regent of Dragonstone.

The new visitors were hardly the picture of manly vigour. Five of them could walk, one of whom was still a slender youth who must not have seen five-and-twenty namedays and another of whom was even younger and had a face covered with hideous warts and pimples. The sixth was an old man of such great girth that he had to be carried in a litter.

As they approached the high chair, the handsome silver-haired young herald proclaimed, "Lady Selyse Baratheon, born to House Florent, Lady Dowager of Dragonstone and Lady Regent of Dragonstone for the Lady Shireen Baratheon!"

When they had been summoned into her presence, the visitors had been named. One of the able men was Ser Helman Tallhart, Master of Torrhen's Square, who in any of the Seven Kingdoms but the north would have been titled a lord, and held lands greater than many with that title. The fat old man on the litter was Wyman Manderly, Lord of White Harbour, with a stream of other titles. Of the four who shared a look, the two young men were Edwyn Frey, the tall thin one, and his younger brother Petyr, the warty one. They were the first- and third-born sons of Ser Ryman Frey, the heir to the Crossing. As the middle brother and their father were with the Young Wolf ravaging the west, the elder kinsmen accompanying them were their father's half-uncles Jammos and Whalen, of that same House.

Perhaps to other eyes it could have been an impressive delegation. But the Freys, though one of the most powerful Houses that were not called Great, were looked down upon for their low birth. The Houses of the Narrow Sea, most of them poorer than House Frey in gold but richer in ancient ancestry than the mere six-hundred-year lineage of the Lords of the Crossing, were especially prone to such contempt. The Tallharts and Manderlys were more respected lines, but, all told, this delegation paled compared to a Hand of the King who was also the king's uncle and of a Great House in his own right, House Lannister. And, more importantly, Lady Selyse's face had been even more pinched than usual since she had heard that Jammos and Whalen Frey had come here styling themselves as King Robb's goodbrothers.

 _What lunacy occurred on the Young Wolf for him to send Freys to Dragonstone?_ It was an insult, in a way. Due to the Clash of the Stags, Lord Frey had more men-at-arms by far than Lady Baratheon. Surely all here knew it. And it was almost rubbing in Lady Selyse's face the lack of the most obvious choice for an alliance with Robb Stark. But Tyrion supposed the boy might have had little choice. Alternatively he could have sent only Tallhart and Manderly, and a delegation of only two Houses of significance, neither of them related to a Great House, would be even less impressive than this one.

Still, it did not escape Tyrion's notice that Lady Selyse had no sheathed sword in her lap as they entered, nor that they had been allowed to enter as a larger group than he, though not with even close to their entire retinue, lest they overshadow the display of power by their hosts. Those were ill signs indeed, in light of what he knew of how some in Lady Selyse's court already looked with favour on the prospect of an alliance with House Stark.

"My lady of Baratheon," Lord Manderly began, "greetings."

"Greetings, my lord," Lady Selyse replied.

"My lady, I bring word from His Grace Robb of the House Stark, King in the North and King of the Trident. I have a letter here from His Grace the King under his seal, to assure you that my companions and I are entrusted by his express will with the right and responsibility to speak in his name."

The letter was presented to Lady Selyse, who duly read it as she had read Tyrion's from Joffrey more than a fortnight ago, and there was a round of gifts to the lords and ladies of the Narrow Sea. Tyrion was interested to hear Jammos Frey call the white-haired Lord of Swirlstone "my good lord grandfather". It took a moment to recall that Lord Jon's daughter Annara was the latest Lady of the Crossing to be survived by Walder Frey. By his age, which must have been near hers, plainly Jammos could not truly be her son, or else he would have been much too young to be sent on a mission of diplomacy, but even a stepson was kin of a sort. Tyrion supposed it was a small loss, for Jon Farring had already been an opponent, but it was unfortunate nonetheless.

When they had given their gifts to the greatest among the courtiers of Dragonstone, the Stark delegation came to the point. "My lady," said tall, slender, young Edwyn Frey, he who someday would be Lord of the Crossing, "His Grace the King sends his deep horror at the slaying of your late lord husband and his loyal men by the despicable Lord Renly. And I must convey that my lord great-grandsire mourns especially for his valiant goodbrother, Ser Gilbert Farring, and his son and cousin. His Grace believes it fitting for those wronged by the crimes of Renly and Joffrey, more alike in nature than either may prefer to believe, to stand together against both those villains that falsely claim the mantle of kingship."

"The Seven Kingdoms were ungainly welded into one by dragonfire," his great-uncle Whalen said, "and the dragons are dead. Joffrey and Renly alike will fail to hold what should never have been made. But that does not mean we cannot work together. The Kingdom of the North and the Trident extends the hand of friendship to you, my lady of Baratheon, confident of our strength and the justice of our cause and willing to aid you in overthrowing our common enemies."

"The Lannister cause is dead or dying," said Ser Helman Tallhart. "Even as we speak, Renly marches ever-closer to King's Landing. There he and Joffrey will spill an ocean of each other's blood. Meantime, His Grace the King is winning victory after victory in the west. Lord Tywin plays for time around the Trident like a coward, daring neither to relieve King's Landing nor to stray far enough from it to pursue an effective campaign against the riverlands, while His Grace ravages the westerlands. Sooner or later, if he does not die in a failed defence of King's Landing, as he may, he must come to the west's defence. If he does, his army will be broken as so many other western armies have been broken by His Grace the King in his glory and greatness. Once that is done, let Renly march against us, calling himself a king. He will be a king with a depleted army, a king so weak he can scarcely win a battle with horse against foot with four to one in numbers. Such a man stands no hope of victory against a warrior as able as His Grace."

 _That was an astute choice._ Tyrion cursed Lady Selyse's decision to force him to enter the Great Hall alone during his own first audience. The Master of Torrhen's Square was a muscled, hard-faced, battle-scarred northman, an older man with streaks of grey in his hair but still plainly of an age for fighting. Assurances of victory sounded surer, stronger, coming from a man who looked like a warrior. He had dozens of such men among his Lannister retinue, but it had not the same effect from a dwarf. There was no substance to it, of course—it was a trick, a farce, a veil—but tricks would not have been invented if there was no power to them.

"Renly Baratheon chooses to be our enemy, as he is yours," said fat Lord Manderly, with his softer voice, "by seeking what was never his by rights. But the same cannot be said of the Lady Shireen. To you and your lady daughter we propose alliance, not because we cannot triumph without it but because your cause and ours are well-suited to be made one. And we do not propose merely that she remain Lady of Dragonstone, though that is also part of her inheritance. Once Renly is defeated, who should rule the stormlands and the crownlands-that-once-were but the last Baratheon? And when his upjumped Tyrell friends fall with him, who should rule the Reach but House Gardener's true heirs? And when Joffrey and Renly and those who have followed them into dishonour are overthrown, who shall be rewarded in lands and honours but those of noble blood who have fought and suffered and endured against them and proven their loyalty so well?"

Then spoke Hendry Sunglass, Lord of Sweetport Sound, who had inherited his lordship after his cousin's sons, Lord Guncer and Ser Roger Sunglass, had died in the Clash of the Stags alongside three sons of his own. "You speak fairly, my lord," the old man said. "I hope you will speak clearly too. What, then, would you promise to our noble lady and to us?"

"Vengeance," answered Lord Manderly, not only to Lord Sunglass. "Justice, for your fallen sons and brothers and fathers and husbands. His Grace himself seeks the same thing, for his lord father was slain as Lord Stannis was. Lands and honours aplenty, once Joffrey and Renly and their treacherous servants have fallen, as, the gods willing, we shall see soon. And for your lady, the stormlands, and a guarantee of His Grace's friendship which, by a letter that came to me from His Grace, I am permitted to make on his behalf. For the Lady Shireen is of an age with his brother, Prince Brandon, a boy of ancient noble blood: a marriage that could seal our alliance and our friendship for many years to come."

"Fair words indeed," a voice said loudly. Tyrion knew not what he must say, but he knew he must say something, lest the hall be utterly convinced by the Stark delegation's story, delivered without challenge. "I would question only the truth in them." He scrambled for a phrase. "And the truth is, you cannot win this war."

"And who is to ensure that?" said Tallhart, looking at him with contempt. "Dwarfs and whore queens and a tired old man with an already beaten army?"

"My lord father will be so disappointed to hear that he's been beaten and he didn't hear of it," Tyrion said sweetly. "If anything, I have heard the opposite. Or has nobody told you of the Battle of the Banks?"

Tyrion recognised, with pleasure, the briefest flash of fear in Tallhart's eyes. It was gone in an instant. _So I was right; they did begin their voyage before they heard of it._ "Some minor skirmish."

"No, and I daresay you know better than that yourself, ser," Tyrion replied. "Ten-thousand northmen under Lord Bolton advanced southward to occupy the ruby ford of the Trident. My lord father taught them not to believe themselves equal to a Lannister. Half that number escaped, and even now are besieged in holdfasts beyond the Trident by my lord father. The rest fled or were slain in the rout. Westermen roam the riverlands, ser, and some are even nearer to the Crossing than Lord Walder may like. Perhaps Robb Stark should not have dared send you away."

"A small setback," Tallhart said. "Do not try to baffle us with the dazzle of a single battle, Imp. The full shape of the war is plain to see. Your father must still come to the westerlands and die there or come to King's Landing and die there. You are caught between two armies, both of them stronger than yours."

"But are they?" asked Tyrion. "Your so-called king is trotting around the west with a few thousand men ahorse, too few to threaten Lannisport or the Rock. Meanwhile the lands of the Trident are torn apart. How long do you think the riverlords will remain quiescent, I wonder? Do you expect them to stand still and obey forever, while their homes are taken and their fields burnt?" He twisted the knife. "I know not. Mayhaps you do, if the ironmen's activity in the north is any indication."

He turned to Lady Selyse and spoke briefly and loudly, lest he be cut off mid-phrase. "The Stark cause is a lost cause, my lady. I presume you would oppose being shackled to a corpse."

"Trotting?" said Edwyn Frey. "We have taken great strongholds. Ashemark, for one. My own father had a part in that."

"No doubt you did, young ser, no doubt you did," Tyrion said. "There's just one problem. Two kingdoms have sworn fealty to Robb Stark. Both of them are under attack. He stands in neither of them. How long do you think this can last, before the king of the Trident and the north becomes the king of neither?"

"Long enough for Lord Renly to take King's Landing and stick Joffrey's head on a pike," Petyr Frey replied hotly.

"Enough!" cried Lady Selyse above the argument. "Enough, I say!" Silence fell. "You have spoken as you would. Now tell me: What would you bring to me?"

"His Grace would make your daughter queen," Tyrion said swiftly, "the _true_ queen, of all seven kingdoms. Your grandchildren will be kings and princes and princesses. And she will keep her life, by allying with the only power that has any real hope of vanquishing Lord Renly."

Helman Tallhart said, "His Grace the King, unlike Joffrey, will not make promises he cannot keep. Joffrey will die, and Renly after him. His Grace will be an ally of House Baratheon, as Lord Eddard was before him. And we will give you the stormlands without requiring an alliance with the misbegotten bastard who started this war."

"Aye," Whalen Frey said. "The war and the death of Lord Stannis are the Lannisters' fault. Lord Renly, villain though he is, merely seized upon an opportunity—an opportunity he would never have had, if not for Joffrey. Does any man, in his heart of hearts, truly believe that the deaths of Jon Arryn and Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark in such swift succession, all benefiting House Lannister, were naught but coincidence?"

"Lord Arryn was an ancient man," said Lady Danelle Chyttering, "and the late king was always fond of hunting, even as he grew, ah, let us say—" Tyrion wondered how such a cold-hearted woman could sound so bashful and demure— "broadly less well-suited to it. At the time of his death he was also in his cups, as was his wont, as all men know. My lord of Frey, I fear that you overstate your case."

Tyrion could have kissed her. Ironically, it was actually true that Robert Baratheon had been murdered, but at least in this, Cersei, though he would never tell her so, had acted well. The idea that a drunken sot fond of hunting and fighting would get himself killed by drinking too much when he was hunting was wholly plausible to anyone who had known King Robert. Whalen Frey's words were perfectly true, but they sounded mad as Aerys.

"I believe I have heard enough," said Lord Sunglass. "My lady, you know I want to believe this alliance can be made, but I fear it cannot. Robb Stark will not bring the Lady Shireen the crown that is hers by rights, and, moreover, he _cannot_. I wanted to hear a persuasive explanation for how House Stark can win this war in spite of the Battle of the Banks. I have not heard one. My lady, the choice is yours, but know this: I would sooner die than bend the knee to Renly, who slew my Danwell and my Androw and my Perwyn, and if he can be defeated, the House that will defeat him is House Lannister."

"Aye," said Lady Chyttering.

"I think not," said Lady Brienne Bar Emmon. "We have already lost too many of our sons to war. If we fight again, with even fewer menfolk, we will only lose more, and gain nothing."

"Aye," said her goodsister, Lady Helicent Velaryon. "House Stark cannot win this war, but I can no longer blind myself to the truth that I would rather not see; House Lannister cannot either. Even in such a great victory Lord Tywin lost too many. 'Twould be better for us not to fight."

Tyrion took the betrayal with almost languor. _To think of it! Conspirator and murderess she may be, for once in her lifetime Danelle Chyttering was being honest._

"I think not," said Ser Axell Florent. "Lord Tywin is master of half the riverlands now. If the riverlords are fool enough to confront him, he'll have the rest soon enough. The Starks are doomed; the Lannisters are in the ascendant. Unpalatable truth it may be to think Lord Renly can lose, my lady, and if so we're all dead men walking; but I tell you, it is also an unpalatable truth that Lord Renly will never allow Lady Shireen to remain alive. However unlikely it may be, we've no choice but to seek to destroy him. The time was, I thought a Stark alliance was the best way to achieve that. Now? I don't think so."

 _You mean, you now think we're doing well enough in the war to make it worth the risk so that you can get your hands on Brightwater._ But Tyrion would be a fool to complain, of him or of Lord Sunglass or of Lady Chyttering or any of them. Support was support, no matter its reason.

"Lord Renly is not such a man as you speak of," declared white-whiskered Lord Farring in his quavering voice. "Foul though he may be, he is no child-killer. The Lannisters are. I say, no."

A hundred retorts sprang from other courtiers, and a hundred more in return, till Lady Baratheon gestured and a loud note of her herald's trumpet brought them all to silence. Court was dismissed, and they filtered out of the great dragon's maw.

Abruptly Tyrion felt the grip of a hard hand on his shoulder. "My lord of Lannister," said a silver-haired knight whom he recognised as Ser Laerys Galenyon, "my lady would speak with you."

"I see," said Tyrion. "I shall be dressed and prepared to dine in her quarters."

"No," Lady Baratheon's knight said, and Tyrion noticed other men-at-arms, spread discreetly throughout the vicinity. "She would speak with you now. Alone."

There was no choice. Tyrion followed the knight through a dark, dank set of passages that somehow led back into a side-chamber of the Great Hall. From there they mounted a long, winding spiral staircase. Tyrion huffed heavily as he climbed each step. It was easy to resent Lady Selyse's serving men, young and strong and _whole_ , whole above all, as they made the ascent while scarcely even sweating. They went past several grim-faced armed guards, one of whom took away anything on Tyrion's person that could be used as a weapon, even an eating dagger of the sort that anyone would have, man or maid. Then, and only then, one of them opened the door.

It was hard not to gasp. Inside the room there was the most magnificent map he had ever seen. Fifty feet long and up to half as wide, it was a map of all of Westeros, but a map like no other. It was not merely drawn. It was painted, and, moreover, it was sculpted. The Mountains of the Moon were mountains. Hills were hills. River valleys were truly valleys, carved inward by the power of the water. And at the precise place where Dragonstone should have been, there was a high seat, no, that was not the word for it, a _throne_ , and enthroned there, there was sat…

Tyrion blinked.

Not Lady Selyse.

A girl.

"Do you like it?" said Shireen Baratheon, trueborn Lady of Dragonstone, looking up from the pages of her book.

Tyrion looked around. The Lady Regent was nowhere to be seen. "It is… marvellously made, my lady."

"It was Aegon the Conqueror's room," Lady Shireen said. "My ancestor. He was here when he planned to take Westeros. But it's really father's room. He likes to work here."

Tyrion had no idea what he ought to say to that.

"He did," said another voice, and for once Selyse Baratheon was welcome.

"You have my condolences, my lady."

"Spare me," said Lady Selyse with an irritable wave of her hand. "There is no use in a lie when both of us know it for one."

He fell silent.

"Your offer is not without merit," she allowed, grudgingly. "I must at least consider it, as sufficiently many of my bannermen desire that I do. And my daughter is the rightful queen."

Tyrion interjected: "Which is exactly why Lord Renly will not leave her be."

"I need not hear such words again!" Lady Selyse snapped. "Do you think I do not _know_ , fool of a dwarf? Do you think I have not _always_ known? No. If so, your mind is as stunted as your body. I was Stannis's wife, I was Lady of Dragonstone. Do you think he did not tell me, do you think me ignorant of what manner of man Renly Baratheon is?"

He knew of no good way to respond to that.

"I do," Lady Selyse said, now more calmly, "and I assure you that you need _not_ tell me at my court to make me fear it. But you see, 'tis not only Lord Renly whom I fear. My lord husband also told me much of Joffrey."

Dread pooled in the bottom of Tyrion's stomach. _Oh gods._

"Kittens," she said, almost in a whisper. "Cut from a pregnant cat with a knife by a monstrous child, the manner of child only such an accursed act as incest could conceive. I would save my daughter's life, of course, and I would give her the throne that is hers by rights. But I would rather die at Lord Renly's hand than let her wed a beast."

Tyrion tried to think quickly. _If I fail here, 'tis my head Renly may well put on a spike next to Cersei's and Joffrey's._ "If that is truly what you believe of my nephew," he said, playing for time, "why did you not expel my delegation as soon as you heard our aim?"

Lady Selyse pointed a bony finger. "Do not play games with me, my lord," she snarled, "for I am utterly out of patience. _You know why_."

"Because it is not what you want to believe. Because of Renly."

" _Yes_. Of course." Lady Selyse breathed deeply with frustration. "But for my daughter's sake it is what I must believe, unless you can persuade me otherwise."

Tyrion thought. He could not think too long, though, lest he appear false. "You know how young boys play at war?"

"Of course."

"Well, consider a boy kept carefully by his mother all his life, since she lost her firstborn son. A mother eager to protect him from anything that might harm him. A boy shielded from the sight of blood, even in food, let alone in men. And a boy, at the same time, who hears his father speaking endlessly of his better years being in battle, and the glory of war. Think of what might happen to the mind of such a child. No understanding, not truly, of what death is, what death means. All the while, he's hearing about it as something he should aspire to. He can't refight the Battle of the Trident, as his father always did in his thoughts when the rest of the world proved too complicated for him. He can't fight any battles at all. He is, after all, a boy. But he does want his father, a father sinking into vice, devoid of joy, to notice him. I'm sure you know what even a pat on the head can mean to a small child. What do you think he might do?"

Tyrion's words gained speed, gained confidence. "Why would he have brought the kittens to Robert if it were just pure cruelty? Such a man would conceal his deeds, not bring them to the king. 'Tis because it wasn't; that isn't who he is. No. He brought them to Robert because, as far as he, a child, could understand, it was the only way Robert would approve of him."

"So what happened then?"

"Robert saw the kittens," Tyrion told her bluntly. "He hit the boy harder than I've ever seen him do before or since. Cersei feared he'd killed him. Joffrey has never done such a thing since. He is many namedays older than he then was; and long ago he stopped seeking Robert's approval."

"You are fair-spoken," said Lady Selyse, but there was still caution in her voice. "But your words are always as fair as your form is the opposite. How can I know the tale is true? How can I know Joffrey is the king you portray him as, and not the beast I know him to have been?"

"I have an idea," said a voice that was not Tyrion's or Lady Selyse's.

"Shireen, this is an adult matter, the decision is not for you," her mother told her.

"I rather think it is," said Stannis Baratheon's daughter, lip curled stubbornly, "as it's about me, and I have an _idea_. Aren't you even going to ask me what it is?"

Lady Selyse sighed. "I brought you here so that you can observe and learn how you should act as a lady in the future, not so that you can make decisions now. Do you even understand what is being asked?"

"Yes," said Lady Shireen, with a withering look, "of course I do, and I know what to do. We want to know whether Joffrey is a beast or not, so I'm going to meet him."

" _No_!" her mother cried.

"You want to go to King's Landing?" Tyrion asked cautiously.

"I forbid it!"

"When did I say King's Landing?" With flaky black-and-grey stonelike substance covering her neck and half of her face, there was a rather disturbing effect when Lady Shireen Baratheon gave them such an angelic smile. "Now, this is an adult matter, so I wouldn't know about that. But it seems to me that, though we need your army, you need our fleet or else my uncle will cross the Blackwater; and if we don't have your army, we may live here for a few years longer, but if you don't have our fleet, my uncle will kill all of you in a few moons' time. So it seems to me you need us at least as much as we need you. So I'm not going to King's Landing to attend Joffrey in _his_ home. He is coming here, to attend _me_."


	19. Chapter 19

**TYRION**

It was morning in Blackwater Bay, though from the cold one could have thought it midnight. Narrow Sea winds whistled above the waters, which were no longer dark and fathomless but paler and gentler as the _Maiden Dancer_ drew nearer to land.

Tyrion had not slept well. Having awakened before the dawn and endured several miserable hours pacing aboard the ship as she tossed in the waves, he was quite alert, and he had had plenty of time to ponder and make himself miserable. They saw no galleys on patrol before coming in sight of the city. That boded ill, and he could not help but compare King's Landing's meagre fleet to Lady Baratheon's in the harbour of Dragonstone, which seemed so numerous that they could have been an army of men afoot, so numerous that no man could count to the end of them.

With their red-and-golden lion standards streaming, and with only three ships, they were not bothered by the ships at the city. Clearly there was no invading army here. The sight of Joffrey's banner, stag and lion rampant, over the Red Keep spurred Tyrion to let out a breath of relief. He had not truly thought, in his rational mind, that Lord Renly could have already taken the capital—the pretender's army was too distant yet—but he was pleased, nevertheless, to be free from the fear of it.

The _Loyal Man_ came first to the Iron Gate that faced the sea. Men-at-arms whose fealty was to the Rock and knights and squires from the westerlands and crownlands poured out of the ship like falling rubies, with their lion-crafted halfhelms and their weapons gleaming in the morning light. The war galley that had carried them, free of her cargo, drew away to rejoin her fellows, and then the _Wildwind_ followed suit. Only then did the _Maiden Dancer_ take her own berth in the harbour. Consequently Tyrion was surrounded by an honour guard of faceless red-cloaked men as he disembarked. The unloading of the big-bellied merchant ship that he had travelled on took much longer than that of her escorts, full as she was with gifts from her cargo hold, but Tyrion did not remain to watch the servants at their work. He gave commands, and his guardsmen drew tightly around him as they headed to the Iron Gate. It was well that they did, for the fisherfolk's mood was mutinous. A sea of thin and cold-eyed people parted for their passing, giving them no trouble, but fixed them with stares in accusing silence.

A company of the City Watch awaited them at the Iron Gate. "Who goes there?" called their leader.

"Tyrion of House Lannister," Tyrion replied, "and acting Hand of the King in the name of Lord Tywin Lannister, who will hear of it if I am not let in at once."

"Then pass." With ceremony complete, the gate opened.

As the gold cloaks slotted into formation around the red cloaks, who outnumbered them—surprising Tyrion with the well-practised smoothness of the shift—Tyrion crooked his finger at their leader and called, "Captain."

The lanky captain came through the Lannister guardsmen, who parted for him. He was younger than Tyrion had at first realised, and Tyrion guessed that he had never spoken with such a lofty personage before, for he shook slightly as he spoke, "M-my lord?"

Tyrion said, quite loudly, "Walk with me." His men formed a red and golden wall around him, bristling with steel, as he walked at a leisurely pace southward, treasuring the motionless solidity of the ground beneath his feet.

The Iron Gate opened unto a square, like all of King's Landing's gates, for ease of organising the defences of the city. Rosby Road, which started far outside the city, continued through the Iron Gate within it, roughly southwestwards, leading to the great square at the city centre, but Tyrion had no desire to go hence. He took a more meandering, winding path along several lesser roads to the Red Keep to meet his sister. _My sweet sister will be so displeased. All those opportunities to drown, and I missed all of them._

This part of King's Landing, between Aegon's High Hill and the Hill of Rhaenys, was one of the poorer parts of the city. As one could tell by nose alone, Flea Bottom lay nearby, on the other side of Rosby Road from here. The houses' roofs drew inward, overhanging their foundations so far that there were places they almost met those on the other side of the little road, which Tyrion was fairly sure was against the laws established by King Aenys for the then-young city. Nobody had cared since then. This was a place of beggars and of poorer craftsmen, those too junior in their guilds to secure better incomes and accommodation, a place of cutthroats and of taverns that would sell dubious wines and meats with no questions asked. The streets scattered behind and ahead of Tyrion's column, their denizens often not the sort that saw the presence of lords and the law.

"Why were the fisherfolk wroth with me?" Tyrion asked the captain as they wandered through the narrow, twisting streets. "I have never been loved, well do I know it, but I've never seen such great mislike."

"The fish, m'lord," the captain said. He had regained a measure of composure, Tyrion was glad to see; silently walking for a while may have convinced him that high lords would not bite if they were close to him. "Lord Lannister sent some food from the riverlands—not much but it seemed much, since the city has been starving—so the prices fell, seeing as there's more food to be sold, m'lord, that's how it is. The fishermen's catches were poor before, even when you left hence, m'lord, and they've only been getting poorer, but when fish was all there was to eat, a man can make a living off 't. Now they can't. There was a riot last week along the waterfront. The Watch, we dealt with it better, we would, if we had the chance, but the disorder would spread, 'twas feared, so the army crushed them. 'Twas ill done, too harsh by far. The Fishing Guild is stuck in a rut, hopeless and penniless. The Lord Regent promised them a little money in recompense, but he revoked it after the riot, and many of their masters are arrested or dead."

In that, Tyrion's ears pricked at a single phrase. "Lord Regent?"

"What?" The gold cloak was back to stuttering. "You—you—you didn't know? But—but we thought—we all thought you and he—"

"Yes, I did not know," Tyrion said irritably, "and I will not for a while more, unless you tell me. So be quick to it."

"Y-y-yes, my lord, I'm, I'm sorry, m'lord, a thousand pardons, m'lord—"

"I _said_ be quick to it."

"Y-yes, m'lord." The captain drew in a deep breath. "When you left, the very day aft the last you were seen here, the Lord Marshal called our Lord Commander to a meeting. Ser Jacelyn swore to follow m'lord, and m'lord, the Lord Marshal that is, not Ser Jacelyn, secured the Red Keep with his army and the Watch. Ser Mandon was slain in defence o' the queen, while Ser Boros deserted once he was guaranteed that she would receive good treatment. For Ser Boros's cowardice Ser Kevan stripped him of his white cloak and sent him to the Wall, and good riddance to that one. Most of us in the Watch did as we were told, so only a few dozen were slain in the taking of the castle, those who didn't follow the Lord Marshal, and the queen was taken into custody. She was mad, screaming about treason and suchlike, didn't do as m'lord said, so m'lord spoke with the king instead and now he's Lord Regent. The king 'nnounced it next day, saying the queen 'laid down the hard burden of rule into prayer and contemplation of the gods'—though I was there and that's a bunch of codswallop, begging your pardon, m'lord, there was nothing willing about it—and he's ruled here ever since."

Shock ran down Tyrion's spine. He had not known, had not even imagined, that his lord uncle would dare to go so far. _I meant that revelation about Lancel to hurt Cersei's standing in the mind of our lord uncle. I had no notion that he would just depose her!_

 _But should I have been surprised?_ Tyrion pondered. _Mayhaps I should not._ He had never seriously considered simply deposing Cersei before their lord uncle had come, lacking the strength to do it, and, perhaps as a fault in him, nor had he afterwards. But Kevan did not lack that strength. All it would take was to convince those western lords and heirs and knights who had come hither from Harrenhal that it was ill-fitting for the Seven Kingdoms to be ruled by a woman and that it would serve Lord Tywin and the westerlands better for a man grown to rule, and he, through them, would control the bulk of the men-at-arms in the city. Ser Jacelyn Bywater might have served Cersei instead of Kevan, thus spoiling the smoothness of the seizure of power, but, Tyrion realised, he was partly to blame in that. Ser Jacelyn had been appointed by Tyrion, was loyal to Tyrion, and knew Cersei to be Tyrion's usual foe. Doubtless the man had thought that he was doing as Tyrion would have bidden him.

This was not wholly a bad thing. Tyrion was quite sure that his uncle would be a better regent than his sister had been. But it did mean that he had no real authority in this city any more, save for what Ser Kevan chose to permit him. The last barrier to Ser Kevan's power had been that he was a military leader only, acting in Lord Tywin's name, lacking civil authority. Such a man could not have the legitimacy he needed to rule if all civil authority were against him and his position came only from the naked application of brute force. But now, by means of the gullibility of Tyrion's man, Ser Kevan had assumed a position that gave him the right to rule in the king's name. As both Lord Regent and the man with the army, there was little doubt that he ruled in King's Landing now. Since Cersei and Littlefinger had successfully plotted to expel Tyrion from the city, and especially in the ever-shifting sands of the court of Dragonstone, he had become accustomed to relative powerlessness, and certainly Tyrion trusted his lord uncle more than his sister, but it was still a blow.

The column emerged from a side street onto King's Way, the great straight road that stretched from the Red Keep to City Square to the Gate of the Gods at the opposite end of the city. They had not taken the swiftest route to the Red Keep, but they had to come in from the front gate, so the usage of King's Way was requisite. Some measure of ceremony needs must be observed.

Tyrion's stunted legs ached as they walked up Aegon's High Hill to the gate of the Red Keep. "My lord of Lannister," called the captain of the gate, a gold cloak older than the captain from the Iron Gate who had escorted Tyrion. "You are expected. But I am commanded to tell you that you must enter with no more than ten men."

Tyrion bade goodbye to his knights and squires and his lowborn men-at-arms and hurried through the gate and towards Maegor's Holdfast. Gold cloaks were everywhere. Tyrion could not help but note the calm of those around him as they moved seamlessly into formation. He would not have believed them to be Lannister soldiers, not truly, but his lord uncle had done an excellent job. Under the training of the red cloaks, the City Watch was being turned into something more like an army.

They did not meet in the throne room. Ser Kevan, as was his wont, preferred a small, private audience chamber. "My lord," the captain of the gate said at the door, "your lord nephew awaits."

"Send him in."

Tyrion entered, and beheld the Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms. The sight was underwhelming. Ser Kevan, a stout and balding man with short blond hair, was dressed no more grandly than he had been before, though still in doublet and breeches of red and black and golden velvet elegant enough to befit a brother of the Warden of the West.

"Tyrion," his uncle greeted him. "I hope you are well."

"All the better for the cool clean ocean air," Tyrion said with a bright smile that did not reach his eyes. He regretted the bitter allusion to his exile as soon as he said it, but fortunately the quip sailed over Kevan's head. "Yourself?"

"Well enough," the Lord Regent said with a sigh, "though hard at work of late. Some of the guilds have been interminably rapacious and arrogant in their demands, and just as I placate one, the Bakers' Guild for instance, another, such as the Fishing Guild, jumps down my throat… but that is not your affair. How goes your mission?"

"A mixed bag, truth be told." Tyrion took a seat and plucked a cup of wine from a tray proffered silently by a serving girl. "Some of Lady Selyse's vassals were for us, others against us. I persuaded enough to be for us that Lady Selyse chose to speak with me in person and give our offer a chance to win her approval, but the issue is, from her lord husband she has heard tidings of… ah… His Grace's nature."

It took Kevan a few seconds to catch the meaning of that delicate circumlocution, at which point he took a great glug from his cup. "Gods preserve us!"

"Quite," Tyrion said. "I bandied words with her as best I could, but she is not wholly convinced, in no small due to the words of her daughter. Before marrying Joffrey, Lady Shireen wants to meet him, at her leisure."

"That should not be too hard to arrange," Kevan said, brightening. "A few days should suffice to arrange a suitably magnificent escort for her from Dragonstone and to prepare some quarters."

"You misunderstand me, uncle." Tyrion sipped his wine. "She requires that they meet at _her_ home, not his. At Dragonstone."

"Father judge me, I'm not drunk enough for this. I know not which will be the more intolerable, the king or his mother."

"Oh, I'd never bet against my sweet sister on that," Tyrion said wryly. "But truly, her thoughts are irrelevant. Only the Red Keep's septons will hear them. You yourself saw to that. Joffrey's are the objections that matter."

"I will speak with him," Kevan promised, "to impress upon him the gravity of the matter."

"I think you may be ill-suited to that."

"And why is that?" Kevan's voice rose very slightly. A man who did not know him might have thought him calm.

Tyrion trod carefully. He was on thin ice with his uncle's pride. "I mean no usurpation on your rights as Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, uncle. It is merely that Joffrey may have too much faith in you as family, faith which he does not have in me. I had him chastened for that messy business with the Stark girl before I put her in your custody, as you may remember. I recall no such event with you. I fear that he thinks you would never hurt him, because you never have, and if so, he may not take a warning from you gravely. Or am I wrong?"

"You are not wrong," Kevan admitted. "Very well, Tyrion. It is incumbent upon you to speak with the king, and, I needs must confess it, I do not envy you that."

"I am so glad we agree."

"As am I," said Kevan. "I, meantime, shall speak with Cersei. I doubt she will be pleasant about it. Women's humours are oft unbalanced, and hers more than any I've known. She scarcely suffered one child to be sent from her, nor two. She may pitch a fit for the third, even knowing it temporary."

"Third?" Tyrion raised an eyebrow. He knew that Princess Myrcella had been meant to leave the capital three days after he did, but he knew naught else. "What have you done with Tommen?"

"I shan't say." At Tyrion's carefully put-upon wounded expression, Kevan elaborated, "Please understand, this is no gesture of mistrust. 'Tis but the pure and simple truth that, the more men know of a secret, the easier it is to slip free. If this city falls and the king mayhaps with it, 'twould be best if as few men as may be know where Prince Tommen has been dispatched to."

"I see," Tyrion said, thinly.

His uncle caught the bitterness this time, he was sure, though the man said naught of it. "Good. I would speak with you, also, concerning your duties on the king's council. You were looking over the master of coin's accounts, you told me a turn of the moon past. Lord Brax had to rather hurriedly assume the role and has been wholly focused on more recent dealings. He could benefit from your counsel as regards how they measure against past payments."

It took Tyrion a moment to think through the implications. "Littlefinger's _gone_?"

"Of course," Kevan said impatiently. "The man tried to _kill_ you, Tyrion, did you think I wouldn't remember? In the Father's name I can't imagine why you let him live as long as you did. Even if your sister were his staunch defender, you could have told me the very day I entered this city, and with my strength 'twould have been easy work to tear him from his ill-earned post. 'T has never been fitting to grant such high rank to men of such low birth, your lord father has always told you, and he is quite right. Just look at what has come of this foolish promotion! I wish I could say he was clapped in irons as he deserves, but the man had caution as a virtue, if nothing else. The attempt on his arrest ended with a dozen red cloaks slain and Lord Baelish fled, which is all but an admission of guilt, I would say. All the lords of the realm now know him for a traitor and there is a price on his head, I could at least make sure of that. Tytos Brax, young as he may be, is better-suited to the position: Lord of Hornvale, who fought well for us on the Green Fork and has an unimpeachable record of loyalty to my lord brother."

Tyrion struggled to grasp the enormity of it. It seemed that since he had left King's Landing the capital had been turned upside down. Cersei deposed, Littlefinger exiled and a fugitive, Kevan Lannister in the ascendant, bullish western lords without experience of anything but war replacing councillors because the Lord Regent trusted them… it would take quite some effort to re-familiarise himself with how things stood at court. "I see," he said. "I will give Lord Brax what aid I may." _Who will do the real work while this soldier holds the title?_ he wondered. _That determines who will be master of coin in truth, no matter who is in name._

"I am glad," Kevan said. "I would that we dine together, for then I'll hear from you the full truth of which of the Narrow Sea lords we ought to count as foes and which as friends. Ere that hour, is there aught left to discuss?"

"There is," said Tyrion, perplexed that the matter had not been raised long past. "A trifling little matter. What plan do you have to deal with the eighty-thousand angry Reachmen and stormlanders who are doubtless soon to reunite at the roseroad if they have not done so already, soon to march north to decorate some spikes with our heads? Some thoughts occurred to me on the voyage home; I believe I have a plan."

"Not eighty-thousand," Kevan said. "You mistake the number of Lord Renly's rebels; 'tis not quite as high as you believe. But that will suffice for now. We will speak of it this eve, and not before. I shan't discuss the most sensitive of my plans except in the utmost secrecy."

There was little more to say at that. Tyrion bowed his head. "My lord Regent."

"My lord Hand," his uncle answered him, and he took his leave.

Tyrion gave some instructions to a serving boy and departed from Maegor's Holdfast. His chambers in the Tower of the Hand were much as he had left them. With the Black Ears who were guarding them today, he exchanged nods of mutual acknowledgement, but they were not alone there. "Nice trip?" Bronn suggested.

"Oh, superb," Tyrion replied as he waddled through his door. "Lords and ladies plotting against each other in a pit of snakes where every second word is a lie. How very refreshing. I've never encountered anything of such a kind before. I trust that your stay has been uneventful?"

"Aye. Bit of blood spilt when your uncle put the queen in a cage, but there weren't many men foolish enough to fight on the wrong side in that one, not with half the soldiers of the west staring them down."

"A cage?" Tyrion raised an eyebrow. "Surely you jest."

"Aye," said the sellsword.

"A pity. I would have rather liked to see that." As Bronn chortled, Tyrion added, "And I am expecting a visitor. Tell the guards I shall be quite put out if they stop my spidery friend at the door."

Tyrion busied himself with Littlefinger's accounts, writing down some of the regular payments and the changes the old master of coin had made to them, until his visitor arrived at his study. "I am, as ever, at your service, my lord," Varys simpered.

"Spare me," Tyrion said, dryly. "I don't doubt for a moment you said the same to Eddard Stark. Tell me, what tidbits have you heard since I left that you might see fit to share with me?"

"You wound me, my lord," the eunuch answered in a tone so aggrieved that Tyrion might almost have thought he meant it. "I tell all that I think you would value. Ah, and there is much you should know. I trust you know of your lord father's victory?"

"Of course."

"What you may not know," Varys continued, undaunted, "is that his host has diminished yet further, at his own choosing. As we speak, Leo Lefford marches with three-thousand Golden Tooth men towards the capital. Your lord father wishes it to be secret, lest it reach the ears of Lord Renly."

"And what of the pretender?"

"Those tidings are not so sweet," Varys admitted. "Since the battle Lord Renly's host of foot have at last taken their leave of Bitterbridge—doubtless to the relief of Lorent Caswell, who can't have foreseen that he would host a hungry horde so long—and marched east along the roseroad. But he himself has not come north on the kingsroad, to reach the capital as soon as he may, lest he leave his foot too far behind him—and of course that is what he would fear, given how poorly such strategy served him in the Clash of the Stags. Instead, he turned to ride west. A week past, the rebels' horse joined with their foot half their way along the roseroad, further west, even, than the bounds of the kingswood, and by now surely they must be on their way towards the capital. At a typical pace he could arrive here within three weeks; if he pushes hard, it may be two and a half. We have not the strength to spare a host to send so far south of the river Blackwater, so mayhaps our power in his thoughts is a long shadow of what we truly possess."

"Ill tidings," said Tyrion, "though I am glad to have heard them. There is else that I needs must hear from you. Where is my nephew?"

"Our dear Lord Regent didn't tell you?" Varys giggled.

"Do not mock me," Tyrion warned, his voice soft.

"I wouldn't dream of it, my lord. You see, the Lord Regent was a little concerned over Prince Tommen, due to the riot at the departure of his sister."

"Riot?"

"Oh yes. The smallfolk wanted food, you see, and Ser Kevan, the city's new-made master—new-made indeed, for, you must recall, 'twas a mere two days before the riot that our sweet queen retreated into prayer and seclusion—had none to give them. Some were impertinent, and he reacted… vigorously. His fearsome westermen put it down, of course, it only took a few hours, but the whole affair inflamed the situation in the city, and our dear Lord Regent feared, not without reason, that releasing Prince Tommen to your lord father's army in the open would put him at risk not only from Lord Renly."

Tyrion felt cold. _So not only are some of the guilds up in arms, we are so hated in the city that even with his army Kevan dares not risk the provocation of a ceremonial occasion with a Lannister._ "I see," was all he managed to say.

Tyrion rested in his chair, alone, once the eunuch had gone. He had to speak with Joffrey, he knew, but that would be left for the morrow. Now, he had no stomach for it. Then instinct awoke and he knew what must come.

"Bronn," he called, "dress yourself warmly."

With the sellsword by his side he left the Tower of the Hand, and the Red Keep it lay in, passing the guards at the postern gate. On horseback, they took Shadowblack Lane, which wound around and down like a snake coiled about Aegon's High Hill, and at such time of night was as dark as its name, and followed some further winding alleys through the poor north of the city towards the Hill of Rhaenys. He left Bronn in Chataya's, and took a tunnel from Alayaya's room that emerged in the far north of the city, near the Iron Gate. There, dressed in a ratty cloak, looking like a child, he headed to the manse he had acquired.

His sellswords let him in, and he found her in the bedroom there, though not yet asleep. She sat up when she saw him, drawing clean white sheets over her teats as if from modesty, to preserve her innocence. _Innocence? Fool of a dwarf, you've learnt nothing, she's a whore, fool._

"M'lord, how—" Shae began, but he had not come for talk, not for schemes and plots woven with mindless chatter like snakes in the grass. What he sought was purer, simpler. He pulled off his clothes in trembling, clumsy motions and tore away the sheet that concealed her from him. He was already hard, and he entered her quickly, delighting in the softness of her skin, her breasts beneath his hands.

When he was done, he stood and left her lying there, still breathing deeply. He fastened his garb, strode outside and remained for minutes there till she too stood and joined him in the garden. She looked more beautiful than ever with the starlight in her hair.

"Did you miss me, in Dragonstone, m'lord?" she asked him, her voice low.

"More than anything," he told her. "It is a damp place, cold and dreary and cruel."

"Did you find what you wanted there?"

"In a way," he said. _I doubt that she would understand._ "Sweetling, I must tell you. You are not safe here."

"I have my walls, and the guards you gave me."

"Sellswords," Tyrion said. "They like my gold well enough, but will they die for it? As for these walls, a man could stand on another's shoulders and be over in a heartbeat. Lord Renly is three weeks' march from the city, two and a half if he drives a hard pace. We have four-thousand proper soldiers here. 'Tis more like thrice that number if you count all of the gold cloaks, but that would be unwise. Even if you do, Lord Renly has more than six times our numbers. It may be that only the Red Keep holds out against him, for my lord father's army to relieve. And the sack of a city is always a bloody affair. Otherwise ordinary men will rape, pillage and burn when their comrades have been dying like fish in a net, struggling up a wall, and their blood is hot and angry."

Her face was pale, and he feared he had said too much. Whore she might be, she was still innocent to some of the world's crueller truths. "Then what do I do?"

"I have… well, call it the seed of a plan. I think I might be able to bring you into the castle kitchens."

Shae's face went still. "The kitchens."

"Yes. If I act through Varys, no-one will be the wiser."

She giggled. "M'lord, I'd poison you. Every man who's tasted my cooking has told me what a good whore I am."

"The Red Keep has sufficient cooks. Butchers and bakers too. You'd need to pose as a scullion."

"A pot girl," she said, "in scratchy brown roughspun. Is that how m'lord wants to see me?"

"M'lord wants to see you alive," Tyrion said. "You can scarcely scour pots in silk and velvet."

"Has m'lord grown tired of me?" She reached a hand under his tunic and found his cock. In two quick strokes she had it hard. " _He_ still wants me." She laughed. "Would you like to fuck your kitchen wench, m'lord? You can dust me with flour and suck gravy off my titties if you…"

"Stop it." The way she was acting reminded him of Dancy, who had tried so hard to win her wager. He yanked her hand away to keep her from further mischief. "This is not the time for bed sport, Shae. Your life may be at stake."

Her grin was gone. "If I've displeased m'lord, I never meant it, only… couldn't you just give me more guards?"

Tyrion breathed a deep sigh. _Remember how young she is_ , he told himself. He took her hand. "Your gems can be replaced, and new gowns can be sewn twice as lovely as the old. To me, you're the most precious thing within these walls. The Red Keep is not safe either, but it's a deal safer than here. I want you there."

"In the kitchens." Her voice was flat. "Scouring pots."

"For a short while."

"My father made me his kitchen wench," she said, her mouth twisting. "That was why I ran off."

"You told me you ran off because your father made you his whore," he reminded her.

"That too. I didn't like scouring his pots no more than I liked his cock in me." She tossed her head. "Why can't you keep me in your tower? Half the lords at court keep bedwarmers."

"I was expressly forbidden to take you to court."

"By your stupid father." Shae pouted. "You're old enough to keep all the whores you want. Does he take you for a beardless boy? What could he do, spank you?"

He slapped her. Not hard, but hard enough. "Damn you," he said. " _Damn_ you. _Never_ mock me. Not _you_."

For a moment, Shae did not speak. The only sound was the cricket, chirping, chirping. "Beg pardon, m'lord," she said at last, in a heavy wooden voice. "I never meant to be impudent."

 _And I never meant to strike you. Gods be good, am I turning into Cersei?_ "That was ill done," he said. "On both our parts. Shae, you do not understand." Words he had never meant to speak came tumbling out of him like mummers from a hollow horse. "When I was thirteen, I wed a crofter's daughter. Or so I thought her. I was blind with love with her, and thought she felt the same for me, but my father rubbed my face in the truth. My bride was a whore Jaime had hired to give me my first taste of manhood." _And I believed all of it, fool that I was._ "To drive the lesson home, Lord Tywin gave my wife to a barracks of his guardsmen to use as they pleased, and commanded me to watch." _And to take her one last time, after the rest were done. One last time, with no trace of love nor tenderness remaining. "So you will remember her as she truly is," he said, and I should have defied him, but my cock betrayed me, and I did as I was bid._ "After he was done with her, my father had our marriage undone. It was as if we had never been wed, the septons said." He squeezed her hand. "Please, let's have no more talk of the Tower of the Hand. You will only be in the kitchens a little while. Once we're done with Renly, you'll have another manse, and silks as soft as your hands."

Shae's eyes had grown large but he could not read what lay behind them. "My hands won't be soft if I clean ovens and scrape plates all day. Will you still want them touching you when they're all red and raw and cracked from hot water and lye soap?"

"More than ever," he said. "When I look at them, they'll remind me how brave you were."

He could not say if she believed him. She lowered her eyes. "I am yours to command, m'lord."

It was as much acceptance as she could give tonight, he saw that plain enough. He kissed her cheek where he'd struck her, to take some sting from the blow, and bade her good night.

Tyrion left the manse in silence. _Why did I tell her about Tysha, gods help me?_ he asked himself, suddenly afraid. There were some secrets that should never be spoken, some shames a man should take to his grave. What did he want from her, forgiveness? The way she had looked at him, what did that mean? Did she hate the thought of scouring pots that much, or was it his confession? _How could I tell her that and still think she would love me?_ part of him said, and another part mocked, saying, _Fool of a dwarf, it is only the gold and jewels the whore loves._

Sleep was long in coming, that night.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This chapter contains various things of interest, but most of them—the really twisted Tyrion-Shae relationship and what it reveals about Tyrion's character, for example—speak for themselves. There are two things which I feel that I need to clarify for you.

First of all, with regard to riots in King's Landing, the riot happened in _A Clash of Kings: Knees Falling_ just as it did in the original _A Clash of Kings_. The riot by the fisherfolk isn't a replacement for it; it happened _as well as_ the canonical riot. And Kevan Lannister isn't an evil man; he's no Gregor Clegane. However, he isn't a lord; he is a household knight of a lord; he has spent his life serving as a military commander for Lord Tywin. He isn't accustomed to police work in King's Landing. He's accustomed to leading an army. Therefore, when there's a disturbance of public order, the frame of reference that his mind puts the rioters into is "enemy". Hence the extreme violence with which the rioters are put down, as if they're an enemy army rather than a bunch of scared and hungry civilians. It's the same sort of brutality that you often see when armies are used instead of police forces.

Secondly, with regard to Cersei's fall, it is important to emphasise that I DON'T HAVE AN OMNISCIENT NARRATOR. I am telling this story from the perspective of the point-of-view characters. In both canon and _Knees Falling_ , Tyrion dreaded being expelled from the city for fear of Cersei undoing all his work; in _Knees Falling_ but not in canon, he _was_ expelled from the city. Ever since Kevan sided with Cersei in sending Tyrion to Dragonstone, Tyrion regarded Kevan as Cersei's pawn. If you look at Tyrion's plotline in _A Clash of Kings_ , he thinks of Cersei as his main political opponent, and regards almost everything as a conflict between himself and Cersei. It's an odd form of self-centredness. He isn't _generally_ distrustful; he isn't the perfectly cynical intelligent man that he views himself as. (A lot of people miss this because Martin presents this storyline from Tyrion's own point of view.) He's specifically opposed to Cersei. The most dramatic examples of this are Littlefinger and Varys. Tyrion knows that Littlefinger has literally tried to kill him and has sparked the war between Houses Lannister and Stark with his lie to Catelyn about the dagger. There is no ambiguity about it; Tyrion _knows_ this; Martin is totally explicit about it. Yet Tyrion doesn't get rid of Littlefinger, even though Littlefinger is not a great lord with a powerful family to avenge him and a great retinue to guard him; it's perfectly within Tyrion's power to have Littlefinger arrested and beheaded for treason on the spot and there's nothing Littlefinger can do about it, and the most that could happen is that Cersei might be a bit upset about it afterwards (but not very, because she doesn't care very much about Littlefinger). Yet Tyrion refuses to, because Littlefinger is useful to the crown's finances. This is, to put it bluntly, an incredibly stupid attitude. Littlefinger is a known traitor. Yet Tyrion doesn't punish him because he falls into Tyrion's blind spot because he isn't in Cersei's pocket. Instead, Tyrion does punish Pycelle, who's loyal to House Lannister, unlike Littlefinger, but is in Cersei's pocket, unlike Littlefinger. Similarly, Tyrion has no good reason to trust Varys. Yet he follows Varys along shady passages where Varys could easily get him captured or killed, doesn't bother trying to get leverage over Varys, and even trusts Varys when Varys is providing him with lists of supposed traitors among the prominent people in the city, with no evidence but Varys's word, and executes them. For all that Tyrion knows, Varys might _want_ Stannis to win and might be handing Tyrion the names of various prominent people in the city in order to stir up rebellion among the cityfolk on Stannis's behalf. (We the readers know that isn't true, but only because Varys is serving a different anti-Lannister pretender to the Iron Throne.) Cersei is correct to note that Tyrion trusts Varys far more than he should, yet Tyrion dismisses this statement out of hand and continues to trust Varys, because Varys isn't Cersei. He's so totally, myopically opposed to Cersei that he refuses to give other threats the proper attention.

Because of this perspective, Tyrion thinks that, by telling Kevan about Cersei's indiscretions (especially her questionably-consensual affair with Lancel, Kevan's own son, as there's a really creepy power-dynamic in that relationship), he can deprive Cersei of a pawn. This perspective turns out to be totally wrong about Kevan. Kevan didn't cooperate in sending Tyrion out of the city because he was in Cersei's pocket; he did so because he genuinely thought Tyrion was the right person to send to negotiate with Selyse. And when Kevan learns what Cersei has done to his son (especially bearing in mind the medieval perspective here, the madonna/whore dichotomy; if Cersei isn't a fair virgin / loyal wife, she's an evil whore and must not be trusted) his reaction isn't to stop being Cersei's servant. He was never Cersei's servant. He just goes straight over Cersei's head, because he _is_ , after all, the guy with the army. This is a predictable response, but Tyrion fails to predict it because he's so absolutely fixed on the perspective that everything in King's Landing is a struggle between himself and Cersei that he's unable to think outside that box.

Kevan, meanwhile, carries out his role in King's Landing in the way that Lord Tywin intended Tyrion to. He's a simple loyal man, and I don't mean that as an insult to him. When he learns Littlefinger is disloyal, his reaction is the same sort of reaction that Lord Tywin wanted Tyrion to have: "heads, spikes, walls". When he learns about Cersei being untrustworthy, he just gets rid of her, by stripping her of her power and basically putting her under house arrest. And he fills the small council and the Kingsguard with men whom he knows and trusts, men like him, military-minded men from the westerlands. They might not be the most able of administrators but he regards King's Landing as a snakepit and he wants to be surrounded by men whom he can trust, because, as he views it, an incompetent subordinate is better than a treacherous one.


	20. Chapter 20

**SANSA**

Sansa tugged on the reins and the old grey mare stopped at once with a relieved whicker, snuffling at the reddish-brown carpet of leaves on the forest floor. The doe gazed at her with soft dark eyes, utterly unafraid, her graceful head tilted atop her long queenly neck. Then she turned and bounded away, swift as the wind. She watched her disappear between the trees.

Struck by an impulse, a sudden wild hope, Sansa spurred the grey and followed her.

The gentle breeze turned into a high-pitched whistle in her ears as the grey mare's feet drummed against the ground. Squirrels darted from her path with tails twitching. Trees flew past her, oak and beech and willow and elm and juniper. There were hedgehogs and foxes too, and boar, and once or twice she even caught a glimpse of deer. Sansa clutched the grey's reins tightly and spurred her forth to a faster gallop, her hair streaming behind her, delighting in the patchwork pattern of light born of the canopy of leaves and the noon-day sun, exulting in the speed and beauty, feeling almost as if she were free.

Then she chanced a glance behind her, and she saw her guards, older riders with stronger, younger horses, always a dozen steps behind but easily matching her pace. Hope shrivelled and died within her. She reined in and brought the grey to a gentle canter. _Stupid girl_ , she told herself, _what was I thinking, that I was free? They wouldn't have given me a horse if they thought I could escape with it. I will never fly like the doe, careless, untroubled. They will never let me go, never, never…_

It had been just a few minutes' folly, but nonetheless it sufficed to kill the joy of the ride. Sansa remained for a while, her horse plodding along while she stared at trees and those of their leaves that had fallen, beginning to lose the flowering height of summer glory. Then she called to her guards, "I should like to return, if you please."

The men gave her some gruff "M'lady"s and obeyed that wish. They led her back using the game trails and small bubbling brooks of the kingswood, following secret signs that they, crownlanders all, knew better by far than she. At last, after an hour's ride, they emerged from the trees and saw again the walls of the city.

She smelt King's Landing, stinking and vile, ere she heard it, and she heard it ere she saw it. When she had ridden out into the kingswood, King's Landing had been awakening like a sleepy cat, stretching out one limb while the others still slumbered. Now it was a cat on the prowl. Merchants shouted the names of their wares. Soldiers practised with thumps and clangs of wood and metal. Wagons loaded with food from the southern riverlands, sent by the will of Tywin Lannister, clattered through the gates and to the city's squares and marketplaces. But the greatest din of all came from the summit of the Hill of Rhaenys, where nigh all the masons in the city were gainfully employed building up the Dragonpit into a building fit for living in. That old ruined castle, Sansa knew from Old Nan's tales, had been deserted ever since a mob of starving smallfolk had broken in and slain the dragons chained inside, as an act of hatred against the feuding families of Targaryen dragonriders who were laying waste to the realm in the Dance of the Dragons. After retaking the city, the second king to be named Aegon Targaryen had removed the dragon carcasses and tried to restore the castle, but after his death and the deaths of the last dragons, the eleven Targaryen kings after him had refused to touch the place, seeing in it nothing but a painful reminder of the ending of their strength, but by the labour of those masons and Kevan Lannister's men-at-arms the rubble of that long-forgotten slaughter had been cleared away. Now they were restoring the shattered roof and converting a structure built to be a lair for monsters into a castle with rooms and floors, privies and kitchens, fit to house armies of mortal men.

Sansa neared the river Blackwater and crossed the bridge that spanned it. On the north bank, the guards of the River Gate, well accustomed to her rides, opened it for her without question, and the old mare trotted into the city without breaking step. Ahead of her lay Fishmonger's Square, and her guards closed in around her and drew their swords. Angry, sullen people gazed at her with expressions of loathing, but faced with such a large and well-armed party they knew better than to attack. Sansa saw all those thin, accusing faces and shuddered, remembering the fisherfolk's riot the day before yesterday. Even watching from the other side of town, the shouts and screams and smoke had made her afraid.

The road that led straight out of the River Gate, heading to the great square at the city's centre, was Muddy Way, but Sansa's party veered to the left and took the Street of Steel instead, winding up Visenya's Hill in the south of the city. The prices demanded by the blacksmiths' shops grew noticeably dearer as they made the ascent, but from all of them bellows blazed and hammers rang out on anvils, seeking to sate the Lord Regent's great appetite for more weapons and armour to equip his troops. The Smithing Guild and the Masons' Guild, she had heard, were among the few that bore much love for Kevan Lannister.

They turned left off the Street of Steel and between the Great Sept of Baelor and the Lion Gate they stopped at a fine manse with high walls, surrounded by red-cloaked Lannister soldiers with their lion-shaped halfhelms. Sansa dismounted and gave the reins to a stable boy. The well-oiled, pretty wrought-iron gates moved on their hinges nigh in silence and closed with a clang like the bars of a prison.

Sansa followed the cobblestone path to the blue painted door, which was opened by a servant. More red cloaks awaited inside. There were yet more red cloaks in the corridors she went through on her way to her private chambers, where serving maids stripped her of her clothing and gave her a warm, scented bath.

That afternoon, she received a message from a servant. The Lord Regent would that she dine with him tonight; and in this city his will was done.

Sansa told herself she would not be afraid. She was wrong, as part of her had known she would be. Built so that any woman or man on King's Way, the greatest road in the city, would have to look up even to see its base, the Red Keep loomed above the rest of King's Landing, wrought of pale red granite. An involuntary flash of fear came through her as she could not help but think of what that castle contained, of what she had endured there from Joffrey.

But Joff wasn't there when she met Ser Kevan in a small chamber somewhere in Maegor's Holdfast. Doubtless something else had been chosen to fill the king's time. The Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, yellow-haired, balding, bearded and portly, sat alone, and he said, "Come in, my lady, please, take a seat," with a kindly smile. As she did whenever she encountered him, Sansa met his eyes. They were as green as the queen's were. It helped her to see through his dwarf nephew's ploy, to remember that he was a Lannister, brother to Lord Tywin the enemy of her brother, uncle to Queen Cersei and the Kingslayer, great-uncle to Joff. Her father's head bore witness that he was never to be trusted, no matter that he spoke her more gently than Joff or that he smiled.

 _I hope Lord Renly cuts_ your _head off_ , Sansa thought coldly, and said, "I am at your service, my lord Regent."

"I hope you have been well," Kevan Lannister said. "I recognise that it is smaller than your custom, and many of my men live near you, whom I cannot oversee directly now that I needs must live in the Red Keep to administer the city. I hope they have treated you respectfully."

"They have been unfailingly courteous, my lord."

"Are you sure?" The Lord Regent studied her with a frown. "If you have been at all treated in a manner inappropriate to your station I would like to know."

"I am, my lord," she said, and it was true. She had feared that she would be in danger from Ser Kevan's men, but Lannister killers though they may be, they were civilised ones. They knew better than to bother a highborn lady. Thanks be, she suspected, to her age, some of them had even greeted her warmly and smiled down at her in that way men did, as if they were her father's men, like Jory. Tyrion Lannister was a clever man; even knowing his ploy, it was fearfully easy to fall for it. It was hard sometimes to remember she hated them, though she always managed it in the end. It was much easier to hate Joffrey.

"I am glad to hear it," said Ser Kevan with a smile. "Now, my lady, I must ask: What do you know of Lord Renly?"

Sansa grew very still. _Is this a trick?_ "He is a rebel and usurper and traitor to His Grace," she said, "and I pray nightly for the day His Grace's loyal men may bring him down."

"Not _that_. I mean, what do you know of his movements?"

 _What does he mean?_ "My lord?"

"I see. My lady, when he heard the tidings of Lord Stannis laying siege to Storm's End, Renly Baratheon split his host in twain. His foot remained at Bitterbridge where the roseroad crosses the Mander, while his horse came east to his own lordly seat, to settle matters with Lord Stannis. Once Lord Stannis was slain, he sent word to his host of foot by raven, and they have been marching up the roseroad. His freeriders and knights declined to follow the kingsroad to reach the capital fastest; they've been riding off-road westward to meet them. Lord Varys has been following their movements, and from what he's heard he now believes they met four days ago."

 _Why is he telling me this?_ Sansa thought.

Ser Kevan read her expression like an open book. "I say this because the main rebel host are close to the southwestern edges of the kingswood. Their outriders and their vanguard may be further ahead, _much_ further. Tomorrow, my men-at-arms will begin to ride out for hundreds of miles on the north bank of the Blackwater, burning every bridge they find, and toppling those that have less wood than stone. I expect skirmishing in the kingswood to start within a week. The city, meantime, is a tinderbox; 'tis unwise to use so many of my men escorting you around it, for fear of the wrath of the mob. Under the circumstances, I'd be a fool to permit you to continue your riding trips. I am sorry, but your home is securely guarded and the situation is too dangerous for you to leave it any more."

Sansa was dumbstruck. She understood at once that for all Kevan's show of concern the danger was not truly to her; she was so valuable as a bargaining chip that Renly's men would be fools to do her harm. The danger was not to her; it was to the Lannisters, who might lose their prize hostage to another king. They liked taking things from her, these Lannisters. They had taken her pride when Cersei had betrayed her trust, her father's head when Joffrey had done the same, any hope of company when the Imp had sent her to his uncle's manse, and now the last joy she had remaining out of their own self-centred fear. In her mind she knew it should not have surprised her—Lannisters were Lannisters and always would be—but her heart said otherwise. The Lord Regent, like his dwarf nephew, was good at speaking gently and pretending to care, not at all like the blunt and open cruelty of Joffrey, so for all that she told herself they were not to be trusted, it was easy to unconsciously doubt it.

Sansa struggled for control, for a way of speaking that maintained the illusion of Joffrey's loyal betrothed. _He means to lock me in the manse with the iron gate and throw away the key!_ In the end, she only said, "I understand, my lord," and gave him a smile that did not reach her eyes.

Sansa returned to her small room, less spacious than she was accustomed to in the Red Keep and earlier in Winterfell. She stayed in her chambers for a long while, alone save for the servants, older women who didn't speak to her. It was three days later, on a walk in the manse, that she overheard some of the soldiers gossiping.

"Who returned?"

"The Imp, m'lady," the man said. "He's back from Dragonstone and whisked straight to Maegor's, what he speakin' with Ser Kevan. Lord Renly is buggered. 'Tis said all the thousand ships of Dragonstone are sailing for the boy king."

That may have been so, but the thousand ships of Dragonstone—if there even _were_ a thousand—did not appear on that day, or that week, or a turn of the moon afterwards. Indeed, save for the quiet starvation of the city—and even that was lightened, though not erased, by the grain and eggs and milk and meat coming in on wagons from the riverlands—one could have been forgiven for not realising that there was a war at all. There was no sign of it, save for the trickle of soldiers coming back from the kingswood and sailing across the river to King's Landing for wounds or for resupply. Tyrion Lannister's wildlings were in the kingswood, she had heard; none were left in the city. She took some solace in that. They had always scared her.

The men around her all spoke of fire, of how Lord Renly would surely burn the kingswood to smoke out the Imp's savages, but there was no such thing. Instead the skirmishes continued… but not forever. Little more than a turn of the moon after the Imp's reappearance, the great host emerged from between the trees.

Watching from the top floor of her manse, Sansa had thought that the nest of tents and campfires that had accommodated Kevan Lannister's army until the last of them had moved into the Dragonpit had been enormous. Now she saw how wrong she had been. The camp on the south bank of the Blackwater, not directly opposite the city walls but ending a mile upstream of the King's Gate, was a swarm of cloth and light that stretched far beyond the horizon. Was Renly Baratheon's host ten times the size of Kevan's? Twenty? She knew not. How could Joffrey defeat such a force? The King's Hand and the Lord Regent might be the best warriors in the world, but Sansa was not sure that a force of this size had ever been assembled in all Westeros, save perhaps the host Aegon the Dragon had destroyed upon the Field of Fire, and the dragons were dead. Could a host like this, all the uncountable strength of the south welded into one army, even _be_ defeated?

She hoped not. Sansa knew near nothing of Lord Renly, but she knew that the Lannisters hated him and feared him, and for her that was enough. Thus she prayed, for the first time to the Warrior. "Lend a portion of your strength to the arm of Renly Baratheon, great god," she whispered, kneeling before an icon in an alcove at a time when no-one else was there. "Bolster his courage. Let him shatter the armies of this city, break the gates with his battering rams, burn the Red Keep, cut off Joffrey's head and put it on a spike where it belongs." She paused, choking back tears. "You're also the Father, truly, mother said so, the Seven are one, and the Father is just. Joffrey deserves to lose. Make him. Please."

There were standards across the Blackwater. Some of the smaller ones eluded Sansa, but the major ones she knew by rote: the haystack on a field of orange of House Errol, the sunflowers on blue of Cuy, the black and orange butterflies on white of Mullendore, the yellow field dotted with black nightingales of Caron, the red fox-head surrounded by a ring of blue flowers on white of Florent, and many more. But the standard that truly set the city's tongues a-wagging was the black crowned stag on gold of House Baratheon, huge, unaltered, just as it had been in old King Robert's day, in stark contrast to Joffrey's banner where the stag pranced on only half, with a Lannister lion on the other. The men-at-arms in this manse were all westermen, and unaffected, but she heard them speak of the unease in the city. Lord Renly had chosen well.

Sansa had expected Lord Renly to attack as soon as he arrived, but he did not. Though Joffrey's galleys pestered them with flights of arrows every now and then, and were showered with arrows in reply, the colossal army scarcely seemed to notice them. Instead they set to chopping down trees. Sansa did not know what they were building till she listened to the soldiers, who spoke of boats and bridges; the great army needed to do this to get across the river. That eve, she prayed to the Smith, who forged the lightning bolts, shouted the thunder, cried the rain and blew the winds with his almighty breath, entreating the god that the river be calm when the host of the south were trying to cross it and that it be fierce and furious to throw Joffrey's ships against the banks.

The next evening, she was summoned to the Red Keep. She feared that the Lord Regent meant to further her imprisonment under the ludicrous suggestion that it was for her safety, that in order to keep her securely in Lannister clutches she would have to live once more in the Red Keep, once more in the presence of Joffrey—that which she dreaded more than anything—but the gold-cloaked guards did not direct her to Maegor's Holdfast. Instead she was led up a very familiar staircase. Her heart skipped a beat. In her father's dining room, sitting in her father's seat and steepling his fingers, Tyrion Lannister gazed at her from his home in the Tower of the Hand with those queer mismatched eyes.

"Sansa." His voice was oddly rough. "I hope you have been well treated."

"Well, my lord." Sansa tried to conceal her excitement. There must be something special indeed for him to be so upset. She thought, _Has Robb won another victory?_

"Truly? Your new quarters have been to your satisfaction? My nephew hasn't bothered you, and nor has anyone? I'll be very displeased with them if they have."

"No, my lord. I like it very much, my lord," she lied through her teeth. She was getting better at that. Sansa was unsure whether he wanted her to thank him for taking her away from Joffrey. He had spoken derisively of the boy before, but the king and he _were_ family, and he _was_ a Lannister, and Lannisters played tricks and betrayed and lied. He might well be setting her up to speak ill of Joffrey and then be punished.

"Hmm." He did not sound convinced. "My lady… I regret to…" The dwarf halted. "Seven Hells. I know you won't believe me for a moment, but I am sorry." He took in a deep breath. "Your brothers are dead. Theon Greyjoy killed them."

For a moment it was as if she had not heard him, as if she did not understand what he was saying. "They… they're safe. You're wrong. They're at Winterfell."

"Winterfell was taken," the Imp said. "Not by us. By a host of ironmen led by Theon Greyjoy. Your elder brother sent him to Lord Balon as an envoy. Instead, Lord Balon has declared himself a king and invaded the north. He has met very little resistance. Your brothers were captives for about a fortnight. I'm told they tried to escape, and then Greyjoy committed this… this."

Sansa did not understand. _We are winning._ Lord Renly was going to take the city. Robb was going to defeat Lord Tywin. _It doesn't make sense. We were going to win._

 _My home is taken. My brothers are dead._

Sansa fell back on cold courtesy, clutching at it like a raft for a drowning man. "Thank you for telling me in person, my lord. That was kind."

Lannister looked at her wretchedly. "I am sorry."

"Thank you, my lord," she said again. She scarcely heard him. It was as if there were a whirlwind, audible to her alone.

Lannister waved a hand. "You can go."

She remained the picture of politeness as she let the guards take her down the stairs and to the stableboy who had brought back her horse. When she mounted, she clutched her legs to it and held its reins so stiffly that one of the guards had to hold her as she rode. She even bade goodbye to the soldiers whom she left as she entered her chambers.

Only then, in her bedroom, alone, did she permit herself to cry.

Sansa lived in grief for a time, alone and not wishing otherwise. Theon had killed Bran and Rickon. Theon, with his arrows and his closeness to Robb and his cocky smile. She did not understand it. Why were the gods so cruel? Did they hate her House? Were they going to make Joffrey win the battle?

Mayhaps they were. When the Lannisters took her father's head, Sansa had learnt that the difference between life and the songs. _In the songs, gallant knights slay monsters. In life, the monsters win._

She awoke with a hurting head, early, when the light of dawn that streamed in from her bedchamber's square window was still tinged with rust. There was a distant sound of screams and splashes and shouting from outside; the city's defenders were harassing the southern host again, but this time with a very early attack. Still tired, she listened motionlessly to the fighting for a while, till slowly she noticed that her inner thighs felt wet, as if she had soiled herself as she had when she was very small.

Sansa pulled off her blanket and saw that it was not urine but blood. For a moment she wondered whether she had hurt herself in her stillness last night, clutching the horse so tightly. Then she recalled that that had not been last night, but three nights before then. Or had it truly been three? Time was so fleeting. Had it been four? She scarcely knew. Then understanding came upon her, as she recalled what her lady mother had said, and horror was its companion. _This can't happen now. It will let him take me, and he must never take me. Not now, not when Lord Renly is coming and I'll soon be free._

Madness took hold of her. Pulling herself up by the bedpost, she went into the washing chamber nearest to her bedchamber and washed between her legs, scrubbing away all the stickiness. By the time she was done, the water was pink with blood. When her maidservants saw it they would _know_ , so she went to the window and poured it out onto the garden. She breathed deeply, trying to be calm, until she remembered the bedclothes. She rushed back to the bed and stared in horror at the pale red stain and the tale it told. All she could think was that she had to get rid of it, or else they'd see. She couldn't let them see, or they'd marry her to Joffrey and make her lay with him.

Snatching up her knife, Sansa hacked at the sheet, cutting out the stain. _If they ask me about the hole, what will I say?_ Tears ran down her face. She pulled the torn sheet from the bed, and the stained blanket as well. _I'll have to burn them._ She balled up the evidence, stuffed it in the fireplace, drenched it in oil from her bedside lamp, and lit it afire. She watched the sheet burn, breathing in and out, in and out, in and out, and tried to think quickly.

The maids might notice the missing sheet and oil. A sheet could be taken from the store-cupboard, which was near her bedchamber; her chambers in this manse were not large. Anyone would be likelier to think that one of the maids had stolen it from the store-cupboard than that she had destroyed it. As for the lamp oil, she would have to pour in some more from various nearby lamps. Slightly less oil than expected in lots of lamps would be less obvious than a single lamp that was empty. She dressed herself as quickly as she could without a maid, though to her that seemed to take a painfully long time. Between her legs she already felt wet again. _More blood_. She almost wept with despair. She would have to change smallclothes frequently, and burn them. _No. Then I will have none_. She would have to wash them herself, and throw out the water. It would be wet and uncomfortable, but it might work. For the first time she was grateful for her isolation; she had her maids, but no highborn company, and few demands upon her time. And she would have to find something to wear at night. She had an idea for that. A torn-up shift would do nicely, if nobody noticed it missing. She would have to hope not. But what about the ashes from the fireplace? She would have to wait for the fire to die out and scoop them up to toss them in the garden.

Sansa found herself breathing more slowly, and tried to control herself. It was difficult to be calm. _A few days, or weeks perhaps. That's all. Then the city will belong to Lord Renly, Joffrey will be dead and I'll be free._

She hoped so. The alternative, that Joffrey should defeat his uncle… _no, no, no, no, no…_ It could not happen, she told herself. Lord Renly's army was too great. Not even the gods could be that cruel.


	21. Chapter 21

**CATELYN**

Catelyn and the other folk of Riverrun stood at attention in the courtyard one fine sunny morning. The portcullis rose, the drawbridge fell, and Ser Edmure Tully rode into his father's castle, flanked by hundreds of his men-at-arms. Bright were their swords and helms and mail and the dye of their standards, but grim was the expression on her brother's face. He dismounted in a single bound and called swiftly for Utherydes Wayn, Ser Robin Ryger and Ser Desmond Grell. With them he closeted himself in Lord Hoster's solar for the rest of the day, save for the splendid dinner in the Great Hall which had been prepared for his return, where he attended but spoke seldom, picked distractedly at the seven courses, exchanged a few requisite pleasantries and departed to speak with his steward, captain of guards and master-at-arms as soon as he had eaten his fill.

The next morning, after Catelyn quietly arranged for a servant to speak with her brother, they broke their fast together on fried pike, white and mild, and dark seeded bread, along with a little Torentine red wine. "I suppose you're to ask me about the visit," Edmure said, rubbing at his bleary eyes.

"I am."

"Terrible," her brother said bluntly. "The timing couldn't have been worse. There I go, to Greenpool, singing to Benedict Keath and his cousins and sons the song that you and Robb have written for me, counselling caution, pledging new deals for his copper if he keeps faith in this difficult time, seeking to reassure him about the lack of threat Lord Tywin's army poses to his lands. Then, not two-dozen miles from my presence, reaving westermen sack Fairmarket. 'Twas a barbaric affair, I'm told. The messengers spared no detail. I'll be kinder than that. Homes looted, septs despoiled, hundreds of women, and not a few boys, raped, half the town set afire ere they left… Now he's convinced that all the angry, pleading letters he wrote me were true as the _Seven-Pointed Star_ and my calmer replies were naught but cowardice. The air when I left him was so hot with anger I'm half-surprised it didn't spark. Riverrun must prepare for another campaign, an offensive eastward."

 _He plans to march?_ "That is ill news," Catelyn said with alarm, "but we need Lord Tywin to go west, Robb left no doubt, you have a written royal command. Lord Keath's dissatisfaction is unfortunate but we cannot allow the anger of one bannerman to scupper our plans."

"Unfortunate?" Edmure turned so red he looked like to burst. "'Tis worse than that. I go to a lord's castle, tell him that he is safe, that Lord Tywin's fingers are not reaching so far west, and whilst I eat his bread and sip his wine he suffers his greatest town despoiled. How do you imagine that will make men think of Tully? Damn it, we have a duty, Cat. I am their liegelord—"

"Father is their liegelord," Catelyn interrupted hotly.

"Yes, yes," said Edmure, waving a hand as if her interjection had been childish, "but he cannot do much from a sickbed, so his duties fall to me. Do you think the Keaths stand alone? The exiled lords from the lands east of the Mudwash and south of the Trident already hate me. I have kept the allegiance of the others to this damn fool plan of yours mostly by their confidence that Tully strength will not allow Lannister to advance further. That looks foolish—"

"Damn fool plan? You speak of your king."

"It _is_ damn foolish. What does Robb expect? He thought Lord Tywin would march westward. He was wrong. Lord Tywin dares not attempt to reach past Riverrun, and why should he? His strategy now serves him perfectly. There he sits, with his main body at the cross of the high road and the kingsroad, reaching out to rape, pillage and burn his way across father's kingdom, while Robb wallows in the west, doing naught. It was a good plan at first, mayhaps—truth be told, I'm not certain even of that—but it has plainly failed now, a blind man could see it. How is it that your son does not?" Edmure's voice was thick with frustration. "Surely he's not so proud that he refuses to allow himself to see Lord Tywin has not done as he expected. So what in all the gods' names is he doing?"

"Fighting war," Catelyn answered. She loved her brother, truly, but sometimes he could be so blind. "You have been hearing the complaints of Riverrun's vassals. Lord Tywin, too, has been hearing the complaints of Casterly Rock's. And the bulk of the strength of Robb's kingdom is here in the riverlands. What does Lord Tywin have in the west, since Robb broke the host of Stafford Lannister? Naught, or near naught. Only the household levies of his vassals."

"Lord Tywin can do far more damage to us than we can to him. Some of his reavers have already been marching northward to spook the Freys. Lord Walder has been pestering me so harshly 'tis as if he doesn't know how far away the main body of Lord Tywin's strength is from the Twins. Mayhaps," he added with an inflection of mockery, "the late lord is too old to read a map. But Lord Tywin has also taken to harassing lords to the west of the Green and Blue Forks, and there he's found a goldmine. My lords bannermen are terrified, Cat, more by far than you perceive. What can we do in the westerlands to match the fact that half the riverlands are being ravaged? Little; too little. House Lannister's vassals have been in the habit of obeying them for thousands of years, not like House Tully's; only a fool refuses to believe in the existence of his weaknesses because the thought is intolerable to him. As long as the Lannisters rule in Casterly Rock the westerlands will answer to them, and since the Age of Heroes the Rock has never been taken."

"The Rock has never been taken," Catelyn echoed. "True. That is a boon for House Lannister. But what good does it do for House Banefort or Marbrand or Payne or Sarsfield or Brax? None. You say half the riverlands are being ravaged. I would call it less than that; but regardless, Robb has _all_ of the westerlands open to his power. Lord Tywin needs must rest outside his kingdom while Robb puts it to the sword. He has mayhaps fifteen-thousand men, the remnant of the forty-thousand that marched to war with him and the Kingslayer, young and strong and able-bodied, the flower of the west. How long do you think those westermen will countenance fighting a war to keep their liege's grandson on a throne a thousand miles from their homes while that liege does naught to stop their homes from burning?"

"Longer than you believe," said Edmure. "Lord Tywin has a fearsome reputation. The riverlords will defy Riverrun a hundred times ere the westerlords dare to move against the Rock."

"Lord Tywin has a fearsome reputation," Catelyn conceded, "but Aerys Targaryen was a promising young king once. Reputations change with men's actions, and their inactions too. 'Tis not so very long ago that westermen were laughing at Lord Tytos and openly defying the Rock. Lord Tywin changed that by strength. If he is perceived to have lost it, to be cowering away from danger, he will need to act."

"Only if he truly believes there is a risk his vassals will defy him."

"He'll be a fool if he does not. I was not speaking of great and noble Houses of the westerlands at chance. Every House I named is one whose stronghold has been taken by House Stark. And Renly Baratheon has surely reached King's Landing long past, with his host of eighty-thousand swords. Lord Tywin is losing this war. He may be indecisive now, but he has reason to be desperate, Edmure, good reason. He needs must act rashly, boldly, playing into Robb's hands, to defeat House Stark as soon as he can, because if he does not, Lord Renly will take King's Landing and doubtless slay Joffrey and Tommen and their mother in a single bloody stroke—"

"Slay children?" Edmure protested. "Surely you do him a disservice."

"You know nothing of Renly Baratheon. You should have seen him when he was speaking of the men hanged at Storm's End during the siege for eating other men's flesh, or when he showed his rare unguarded self after the Clash of the Stags. He wears charm and piety and open-handedness like cloaks, but underneath he is a shrewder, harder, colder man than he pretends."

"You may have misjudged him."

"He usurped and slew his elder brother. Is that the act of a kind man?"

"No," her brother admitted, "but he has done no injury to House Tully, or to House Stark for that matter. 'Twould be for the best if he were to triumph in the capital."

"Truly?" Catelyn was incredulous. "If we are to survive the victor's wrath, it must be hoped that the Lannisters and Lord Renly drown in an ocean of mixed blood. Taking a defended city is no easy task, and that remains a likely conclusion. If the gods are kind, the uncountable armies of the Reach and the stormlands will batter themselves to pieces against the walls then the streets of the capital, losing most of their men, and the Lannisters will also lose theirs."

"That was not fair-spoken, Cat," said Edmure with a frown. "The commonborn soldiers of the Reach, the stormlands and even the westerlands have done us no injustice. They merely obeyed their lords. We should not profane the Seven by praying for their deaths."

"Do you think they do not pray for ours? Lysa remains closeted away, unwilling to give succour to her own family. The east is silent. Only if south and west bleed each other white can the north hope to prevail."

"That may be so, and let us pray for the defeat of the Lannisters, certainly. But not for needless bloodshed."

 _Poor brother_ , Catelyn thought with pity, _you so often prefer to act the man, yet you are more of a boy than Robb, some ways, no matter that you've seen more namedays. Do you not realise that they are one and the same?_

She did not say it, though. Some truths were best not spoken.

Instead, she continued: "If Lord Renly slays Queen Cersei's sons, what does that make Lord Tywin? Merely the extravagantly storied master of an outnumbered band of rebels trapped in a kingdom far from their own. Lord Tywin cannot allow that. So he must crush us first. He sought to finish his business with House Stark before turning his attention to Lord Renly. He had plenty of time, but he failed. He is forced to end this campaign now, and cannot afford to wait for a time of his choosing. He must move at Robb's wish, so Robb has the advantage. There will be a battle to decide the issue between Stark and Lannister, that is beyond doubt now. The only question is whether it will be on our terms, as Robb has planned, or on the Lannisters'. Allow Lord Tywin to choose the time and place of battle, come to him, and you award him the advantage. Let him come to us, as he soon must, and fight according to our king's design, and he may be vanquished yet."

"Very well," said Edmure with a sigh. "I will speak to Ser Desmond and Ser Robin and Utherydes. Riverrun's strength will remain here for a while longer. But I warn you, Cat, I will not stay forever if your plan does not bear fruit. If Lord Tywin marches west as you expect, I'll follow Robb's wishes to the letter, as his leal subject. But if you're once again wrong, and he remains…"

"You'll do what?" Her brother had fallen silent.

"I will do my duty."

It was two days thence that Catelyn went to visit her father. Lord Hoster's breath was an arhythmic wheeze, and in his bed his thighs were at a slight angle from his torso and lower legs, as if he were trying, but lacked the strength, to curl. Yet his blue eyes opened when she came into his bedchamber and took his hand.

"Minisa," he rasped.

"No, father. I'm Cat."

"Cat…"

"Yes."

"Sweet Cat," her father murmured. "You have… strong husband, ancient House, healthy sons… I did right by you, at least… did right by one. Or did I? I don't know… so much I don't know… so much… seemed clear as glass, now as a pond gone murky…"

 _Sons._ That alone brought her to tears. It was enough.

"Of course you did, father," Catelyn said, raising her voice. "You did. Don't you ever think otherwise."

"Good…" He broke into a fit of coughing. "Yes… Cat… one… I am glad… good…"

"Vyman woke me this morning," she told him. "A raven came from Cerwyn. Not from Lord Cerwyn, but from Ser Rodrik Cassel, whom I left as castellan of Winterfell."

Lord Hoster, plainly, understood naught of why she was saying this, but he heard the distress in his daughter's voice. "Cat?" His pale hand, with a maze of blue veins protruding much too starkly, clutched her warmer, darker one, tight, too tight.

 _Foolish woman_ , she thought of herself, _will dancing around it in words make it any less true? If you never tell, never speak of it, not even to father, will it become only a dream, less than a dream, a nightmare half-remembered? Oh, if only the gods would be so good._

"Bran and Rickon tried to escape, but Theon Greyjoy tracked them to a mill and mounted their heads on the walls of Winterfell. Robb is my only son."

 _I have uttered it, Mother be merciful. It is not just words in the maester's letter now. Now it is true._

"Cat…" Lord Hoster must have understood something of the horror she had spoken. "My sweet Cat… always good… always do your duty… your mother… so proud… poor sweet Cat…"

"I did my duty," she agreed. "What good did it do me? I oft prayed, but the gods mocked my entreaties, else they'd have ended the war and I'd have been able to return to my sons, or at least they'd have let them be safe. Now Rickon will never grow to be more than a baby, and Bran… when I left the north, he had not opened his eyes since his fall. I had to go before he woke. Now I can never return to him, or hear him laugh again." She showed her father her palms, her fingers, as if she had not done so many times already. "These scars… they sent a man to cut Bran's throat as he lay sleeping. He would have died then, and me with him, but Bran's wolf tore out the man's throat." That gave her a moment's pause. "I suppose Theon killed the wolves too. He must have, elsewise… I was certain the boys would be safe so long as the direwolves were with them. Like Robb with his Grey Wind. But my daughters have no wolves now."

Her father struggled to keep pace with the angry, hopeless churning of her thoughts. "Cat…? Wolves…? Your husband…"

 _He thinks I am speaking of sigils. He does not remember the direwolves at all. Does he remember I have sons and daughters?_ Some things, Catelyn decided, she knew not and wanted not to know. "Your granddaughters, father. You have two. Sansa was a lady at three, always so courteous and eager to please. She loved nothing so well as tales of knightly valour. Men would say she had my look, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was, you can see that. I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself. She had auburn hair, lighter than mine, and so thick and soft… the red in it would catch the light of the torches and shine like copper.

"And Arya, well… Ned's visitors would oft mistake her for a stableboy if they rode into the yard unannounced. Arya was a trial, it must be said. Half a boy and half a wolf pup. Forbid her anything and it became her heart's desire. She had Ned's long face, and brown hair that always looked as though a bird had been nesting in it. I despaired of ever making a lady of her. She collected scabs as other girls collect dolls, and would say anything that came into her head. I think she must be dead too." When she said that, it felt as though a giant hand were squeezing her chest. "I want them all dead, father. Theon Greyjoy first, then Jaime Lannister and Cersei and the Imp, every one, every one. But my girls… my girls will die. The Lannisters will kill my daughters in a heartbeat if they think it serves their purpose. So against them, if not Theon Greyjoy, there can be no bloody vengeance. Only war can avenge Ned and my sons. Only peace can bring back his daughters, and I think he would prefer that, if he were given the choice.

"But men are proud, lords and kings more than others, and even my Robb is a man grown nowadays. They love the sight of a bloody sword and hate the sight of knees falling. Is it even possible for this fire that has consumed the Seven Kingdoms to burn out without House Lannister destroyed or House Stark? It needs must be hoped, but I fear elsewise.

"Last night I dreamt of that time Lysa and I got lost while riding back from Seagard. Do you remember? That strange fog came up and we fell behind the rest of the party. Everything was grey, and I could not see a foot past the nose of my horse. We lost the road. The branches of the trees were like long skinny arms reaching out to grab us as we passed. Lysa started to cry, and when I shouted the fog seemed to swallow the sound. But Petyr knew where we were, and he rode back and found us…

"But there's no-one to find me now, is there? This time I have to find our own way, and it is hard, so hard.

"I keep remembering the Stark words. Winter has come, father. For me. For me. Robb must fight the Greyjoys now as well as Lord Renly and the Lannisters, and for what? For a gold hat and an iron chair? Surely the land has bled enough. I want my girls back, I want Robb to lay down his sword and pick some homely daughter of Walder Frey to make him happy and give him sons. I want Bran and Rickon back, I want…" Catelyn hung her head. "I _want_ ," she said once more, and then her words were gone.

Her father was asleep again. Nowadays his custom was to sleep longer by far than waking. Catelyn studied Lord Hoster's white beard and hair, his chest rising and falling, but slightly such that she could scarcely see it, ever so slightly. There she sat for a time, till Maester Vyman came and she took her leave to her chambers, and to a night without slumber.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I should emphasise that I don't write with an omniscient narrator. You shouldn't take Catelyn's thoughts about what Tywin is likely to do, what Renly is likely to do, what it would be advisable for Robb to do, what is going to happen in the war _et cetera_ as gospel truth. Nor Edmure's, for that matter, nor Robb's nor Tyrion's nor anybody else's. None of my characters are mouthpieces of the author and none of them know everything there is to know; all of them have limited information and are viewing that information through the lens formed by their own experiences and their own way of thinking.


	22. Chapter 22

**SANSA**

Sansa awoke to the polyphonic clamour of rough voices and smooth metal. Her head felt as if wasps were dancing in it and once again there was blood between her thighs. As she shook off sleep and gathered her wits as best she could, at length she realised that what she was hearing was not a single roar, as it initially had seemed to her, but the cheers of untold thousands upon thousands of men-at-arms as they banged their weapons, each man's voice on its own almost inaudible and blended into one for that they were so far away.

Swiftly she dressed, taking care to place the torn-off piece of cloth that she had made under her smallclothes, and she hurried to the only room on the top floor of the manse she dwelt in that had large windows. As she arrived to peer out of the glass she found that she was not alone. Dozens of the red cloaks who were housed here, bleary-eyed as she was, had clambered up to watch the battle. _Of course they have_ , she thought. It would decide their fates as well as hers.

It was the hour of the gull, which came after the hour of the cock that started with the sunrise, and there was but a faint flavour of pink to the light, which was for the most part golden. There was almost palpable alarm in the city, but none of them were looking that way. A mile upstream of the King's Gate, the southernmost of those city gates that overlooked the Blackwater, lay the northernmost tents of the army of Renly Baratheon, and the rebel Lord of Storm's End's camp thrummed with activity. At many points on the river, miles apart, hastily built rafts, carved of felled trees from the kingswood but bound by hempen ropes that must have been carried all the way from Highgarden whence they had come, crossed the river with armoured men upon them. Only knowledge of the men surrounding her prevented Sansa from smiling as she saw how many they were. At this distance the furthest of them appeared more like ants than men, but the virtue of ants was that there were so many of them. Her heart sang. _Surely Joff can't hope to kill them all._

"Why do they just let the rebels go across?" Sansa asked. "I thought they'd want to stop them from getting to our side of the river."

"'Twouldn't do no good, m'lady," said one of the elder men-at-arms, called Willem, a man of grey hair, one of those that fussed over her and pretended to look after her as if they had any right to, as if they were her father's men like Jory. _All part of the Imp's ploy._ She did not like dealing with them. She preferred those who were easier to hate.

"Why not?"

"See those?" Willem pointed to the ordered ranks of men who stood on the south bank of the river in groups, guarded by the unmistakeable shapes of spearmen. "Them's longbowmen, I'd stake my life on 't—all the longbowmen of a host a long way greater 'n ours. Too many. The boy king sends his ships there, I'd not want to be a sailor; they'll pelt 'em with arrows an' kill half the men on deck. Even if our archers kill twice more as they lose—an' I wouldn't bet on it—'tis poor trade for us. The rebels are too many. Best way is, let 'em cross; let 'em come to the walls."

Sansa's eyes followed his gnarled finger from north to south as it traced around the walls. The Old Gate, then the Gate of the Gods, the Lion Gate, and finally the King's Gate… all of them and the walls that linked them were flush with red cloaks. Lannister men-at-arms with lion-crafted halfhelms stood at the ready there, with swords to hand and oil to boil and archers behind murder holes, and other western soldiers were clustered in squares and streets in that part of the city, prepared to leap to the aid of any part of the walls that were hard pressed. Though this manse was not far in the west of the city, the great bulk of Visenya's Hill, crowned by the vast marble dome and seven crystal towers of the Great Sept of Baelor, loomed over it from nearby, so most of the eastern half of the city could never be seen from here. Thanks to that, Sansa's vision ended in the north at a part of the wall past the Old Gate, and in the south she could only see a small part of the ashen ruin that had used to be the waterfront, between the north bank of the river and the city walls. Sansa remembered it as a chaotic clutter of little shacks, warehouses and stalls for poor merchants and the dwellings of fisherfolk and pot shops and alehouses and the cheapest brothels, but the Lannisters had had it burnt to the ground and flattened even the rubble, for fear that it would ease the climb of Lord Renly's host onto the walls which, since the burning, now stood high, sheer and alone.

"These are our strength," the old soldier declared. "'T ain't no easy affair to storm walls like these, m'lady. High walls are the only way a host the size of ours can fight a host the size of theirs with hope of vict'ry. Any fight else, the losses will be too even; on the walls, only, they can be enough tilted to us." He gazed down at the stormlanders and Reachmen outside. "Poor bastards. I don't envy no man who's tryin' and take a fort by storm. Let 'em come here. Let 'em die here."

Sansa shivered. _They won't. Lord Renly has too many. He'll win_ , she told herself, but could not vanquish her own fear and doubt.

"Look 'ere!"

Another of the men-at-arms, a younger man, had spotted something in the distance. Miles upstream, beyond even the furthest of the rafting men, small shallow-draught boats were being rowed across the river, not just one but a dozen, no, not a dozen, dozens, no, not dozens, hundreds, one next to the other next to yet another next to yet another still.

"What are they doing?"

"A pontoon bridge, m'lady," said a soldier whose name she recalled as Petyr. He was a black-bearded man from Lannisport, mayhaps about her father's age. "They must've been built it, this moon an' a week past since they gots to the ci'y."

"What's that?"

"'S a way of crossin' a river when you need it quick. 'S normal, though I've never saw it done on a river big as this fat-arse, Father strike me if I lie. What you does is, you get some boats across the river and you lays a great big bit of wood on top of 'em—ah, I'm no poet, m'lady, you'll see it soon enough—and then you got a bridge o' sorts, though 't ain't a good one. Better hope 't ain't stormy, elsewise you're fucked like a dockyard lass when the fleet comes in. Beggin' your pardons, m'lady," he added, a little abashed.

"Why bother? Why don't they all cross by raft?"

Petyr chuckled, not ungently. "Rafts are for men. You try gettin' a horse or a stonethrower 'cross a river like this on a nice little raft, m'lady, 't won't go too sweet, I'd say."

She soon discovered Petyr had spoken true. From between the distant tents, carried by a hundred or a thousand men, there was mayhaps the biggest wooden structure that Sansa had ever seen. A dozen or so wooden planks, cut almost flat, side by side, all rendered the same length by axe-blows, were held in one by hemp and oak and iron bands, which also served to hold them to another set, and so on. It passed between the hands of men on the south bank, stretching back in a line, ever further into the hands of men who stood on the boats. At last, remarkably quickly, it had reached the north bank of the river, and only now when they put it down could Sansa see its entirety. The bridge was colossal. It made even the war-bred stallions look like the carven toys her father had given her when she was small, as though she could pluck them from the air.

The men who had borne it were the first to clamber onto the bridge from its sides and rush onto the other shore. A few hundred of the southerners who had crossed the river by raft—or was it a thousand? From this far away, it was hard to tell—had gathered already on the north bank. Sansa marvelled at how meticulously Lord Renly's men prepared for an attack they surely knew was not going to come, just so that they would not be caught in a poor position if it did.

More men gathered around the north end of the bridge, as the rafters rushed to defend it from any attack that sought to prevent the main bulk of the southern host from crossing. Sansa realised that there were not hundreds of them, or even a thousand. As they seemed to crawl like shiny-bodied ants with the sunlight gleaming on steel, with the sheer size of the ground they covered there must have been many thousands. Other southerners with swords and bows and spears were dashing across the bridge, while knights with proud destriers and gleaming mail arrayed themselves in neat lines on the south bank, headed by a helmed, armoured man on a white horse with a strikingly bright orange cloak. _Lord Renly? Some lesser lord?_ She could not tell from his face, but when his standard-bearer caught up with him, holding high the black nightingales on a yellow field, she knew him for Bryce of House Caron, Lord of the Marches and Lord of Nightsong, one of Renly Baratheon's seven chosen companions and the mightiest of the lords sworn to Storm's End.

Tendrils of excitement crept up Sansa's spine. This must be Lord Renly's van, the foremost part of his host—though with an army of such size the van alone was larger than many whole armies in the songs—and this its lord commander. The fall of the city was at hand.

Suddenly their thoughts were drawn away by a very different sound, coming from the opposite window. From the Great Sept of Baelor, which thousands of cityfolk had gathered around and doubtless thousands more inside where Sansa could not see them, there issued a great noise of numberless voices, men and women, old and young, crying to the heavens. Sansa knew it, and she mouthed the words they spoke:

 _Gentle Mother, font of mercy,_  
 _save our sons from war, we pray,_  
 _stay the swords and stay the arrows,_  
 _let them know a better day_

 _Gentle Mother, strength of women,_  
 _help our daughters through this fray,_  
 _soothe the wrath and ta—_

Then came a clamour from the west, a bray of trumpets and thunder of hooves, surpassing the sound of the hymn as easily as an eagle surpasses a tree. The sept forgotten, Sansa dashed back to the former window. Thousands of knights were pouring across the pontoon bridge like a shining silver liquid, their fearsome lord commander at their head. Behind Lord Caron's nightingale sigil she saw others, countless lesser sigils, of course, knights and lords of small account, but also the standards of Houses mighty and well recalled in story and song. The white weasel on black of House Varner stood with the crossed quills on brown of House Penrose. The oak leaves of the Oakhearts decorated a banner just ahead of the turtle of the Estermonts, the House into which Renly's mother Lady Cassana had been born. The fox and flowers of Florent flew high, as did the suns and moons of Tarth. Sansa wondered whether the southerners' van alone was larger than the entire western host, even with the few thousand new westermen who had reinforced the city under Lord Lefford's banners near a fortnight ago. Mayhaps, mayhaps not; but it could not be far.

Trumpets called from the city, as if in answer. From both directions now, the calls of war overrode the Mother's hymn. Lion standards flew streaming, greatest among them a monstrosity of red silk with an exquisitely rendered lion in cloth-of-gold that Ser Kevan Lannister had borne with him from his lord brother's host at Harrenhal. The defenders responded. Men in cloaks of red or gold rushed in their multitudes to the south of the city, where they gathered, awaiting their master. Sansa felt a little savage enjoyment. Clearly the Lannisters sought to issue from the gates and give battle to Lord Renly—why else would they be here?—but it was plain to see they were too late.

Sansa gazed out of both windows, each and the other in turn. Through one, the westermen milled around the city, waiting, waiting. Through the other, the power of the south stood assembled in all its glory. More knights were appearing on the north bank of the river every minute, and their fellows on that side, both those ahorse and those afoot, were having to move further and further from the other end of the bridge to give them space to enter, leaving a close-bound mesh of men and metal.

Sansa watched them, mesmerised, until a soldier scarcely older than her brother Robb pointed and shouted, "Look! On the river!"

She turned back at once to the eastern window. An enormous many-oared ship, a galley of war, had come into view on the river Blackwater, downstream of the King's Gate. At first Sansa thought her to be Renly's, for the mighty standard waving above her was not Joffrey's rampant lion and stag opposing but King Robert's prancing black stag on gold, but she and near a dozen others like her on each side sailed serenely through the calm waters, untroubled by any arrows from the city, and as they did, another line of ships came into view behind her.

Those two lines, by Sansa's count, were the right number of Joffrey's fleet. _That_ , she thought, or mayhaps merely wanted to, _is what I'm seeing._ But then there came another line of ships. And then another. And then another. And then another…

 _Mother's mercy. Is there any end to them?_

Sansa watched with her heart in her mouth as the royal fleet of King Robert Baratheon, in all its martial magnificence, sailed down the mouth of the Blackwater. At last, at once, like a flash of lightning, she perceived in that instant the terrible simplicity of the Lannisters' trap. Lord Renly would not have known, could not have known; any host of great size needed to forage and could thus be tracked on land, but by sea it would not be such an easy task for a spy to send a message to his master from the isle of Dragonstone. The fleet could have been left well to the north of the city, beyond the lands held by Lord Renly, till this fateful day, and even on the day of battle his host would not have seen it, for the same reason why she had not: the bulk of King's Landing and the hills on which the dragon-kings had built it stood in the way of their eyes. And now, with the southern host in the midst of crossing, the fury of the royal fleet was heading for the hastily assembled bridge—at the very moment that the southern host was divided, part of it on each side of the river.

"Gods be good," swore another of the men-at-arms, golden-haired Jonothor. "So Lord Stannis's sour old cunt took our side?"

"No wonder in 't," grey-bearded Philip advised him. "Slain by his own brother… o' course the widow of Dragonstone wants revenge."

Sansa knew the very moment the rebel Lord of Storm's End's army saw the royal fleet. Like the coiled muscles of a shadowcat, they sprang into action. As helmed and mounted lords barked orders, standards flying high, men on the north bank formed up to repel an assault, and archers arrayed themselves on both sides of the river in greater numbers than ever before, aiming downstream. Lord Renly did not intend to let the royal fleet pass without exacting a toll, bloodier by far than that of any lowborn tollkeeper.

In time, Ser Kevan Lannister gave a sharp command, and, with the near silence of well-oiled hinges, its keepers opened the Lion Gate. The Lord Regent held aloft his lance and with a roar of hate and purpose the host of the west in cloaks of red and gold sallied to meet its enemy upon an open field.

"Madness," muttered Petyr. "I didn't never doubt m'lord before, you have my oath on 't, but this is folly. Even with the Golden Tooth men, on the north bank they have us three to two, and I say, them crownland-born laggards in them pretty cloaks of theirs, they'll part ways like a whore's cunt first sign the battle looks sour."

"No, m'lord is wise," Willem said. "'Tis true, this is no perfect battle, o' course—that's if we'd hit them earlier before there were so many crossed—but when you ever saw that? I never did. Wait for a perfect battle and you'll die waitin'. This's the best chance we'll get to break them in the field, so the Lord Regent's takin' it."

In silence, they watched on. The royal fleet drew near to the bridge before the Lannister army did. "Y'know, I ain't sure they can break it," Philip said thoughtfully. "That's a proper big bridge, that one, wrought of hardwood and iron. And there's only so big a stonethrower can be stuffed on a ship."

This received a response of gloomy assent. Sansa thought differently; her heart soared.

The ships drew nearer. Flight after flight of arrows rained upon them from the men on the banks, wreaking red ruin to give their sailors cruel deaths, and arrows fell upon the southerners in answer. So the clash of arms proceeded, till the foremost ships' trebuchets allowed their counterweights to drop and threw their burdens forth.

Yet there was no shriek or shudder of wood and iron gravely struck. Instead, the world went green.

Sansa shied her eyes from the flash of vast and terrible light, as though a second sun had been born on the bridge about a mile hence. When she dared to return them, it was in flames. Green fire, cruel and piercingly bright, blazed like tongues of demons, making no distinction between wood and iron, nor between the structure of the bridge, the boats that bore it, and the flesh of horses and even of armoured men who were upon it. All things burnt. The screams were unlike anything Sansa had ever known, in loudness and in number. What could be so horrible as to watch hordes of people cooked alive?

The soldiers in the manse shrank back. "Good gods!" "Fuck!" "Mother's mercy!" and countless other prayers and obscenities were uttered, in their amazement and horror at what could be seen. It was soon determined that even Willem and Philip knew nothing of this. They turned to Hendry, the eldest of them all, who, as he never ceased to remind them, had seen two-and-sixty namedays and fought against Maelys the Monstrous in the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

"Wildfire," he pronounced it. "Alchemist's piss, some call it. I've seen it before. Dangerous stuff; it burns water no less than wood. Piss on it and your cock burns off. But even I never saw it used much as this."

The wildfire did not stop there. The ships drew nearer to that great inferno, and their trebuchets cast more loads of it. More of the bridge, and of the men gathered so close together on either side of it, disappeared amid green flames. She saw lords and knights near either end of the bridge trying to rally their men, but the cause was hopeless. Men threw down their weapons, cast off their helms, their mail, anything that might slow them down, and in their thousands they fled like hunted animals. Many even turned their swords against their former fellows that stood in their way, preventing them from running from the wildfire. Within minutes the bridge and the boats upon which it had rested were gone, wiped from the face of the earth as though they had never existed, save for the long, wide, river-spanning streak of flames. It seemed nothing at all, not even water, could withstand the all-devouring fire.

While the bridge blazed green, Ser Kevan Lannister's charge, his foot not far behind, drew nearer to Lord Caron's defences. The latter had hastily arranged a wall of spears, but moments before the charge struck, there was a great commotion from within the defences. The men under the fox-and-flowers standard of House Florent, one of the few that had been awarded a place of great honour and great danger in the vanguard, turned warhammer and lance and pike and spear and sword against their erstwhile allies. Chaos was wrought in the line at the worst possible moment. In the parts of the line where the Florents were near, the Lannisters drove through them like a polished knife through cheese, and that allowed them to carve through much of the remainder of the line from behind, utterly unexpected. Moreover, the nature of the betrayal was not so obvious to the men on the ground as it was to Sansa looking from far away and above. Attacked by their allies in the chaos of battle, some men judged the traitors wrongly and fought those whom they should have been befriended. And the panic of the desperate men fleeing the spread of the wildfire was no aid at all to the strength and cohesion of Lord Renly's host. Even on the south bank, the lords and captains of the south struggled to restore order. Their comrades on the north bank fared poorer still. And the trebuchets did not cease launching wildfire. With the bridge consumed, they sent it at Lord Renly's army, on both banks, and clusters of men vanished in screams and green flame.

It was inevitable. Pressed from several sides, by a wave of panic fleeing from the bridge of fire and by their former allies and by the tremendous force of Ser Kevan's charge that had broken through their lines, and suffering a rain of wildfire, shocked and struck and battered, Lord Renly's host on the north bank broke. Florent men-at-arms met with red-cloaked Lannisters, along with the gold-clad men of King's Landing, and tore through what remained. Slowly the pretender restored some measure of order to his soldiers on the south bank of the river, the bulk of his army still, and unlimbered the siege weapons they had brought from Highgarden. With spears and arrows and stonethrowers they attacked the galleys of the royal fleet, which fought for a while and then retreated, lacking further need to suffer their decks to be painted red with the blood of dead men; their chief grisly purpose was done. On the north bank, while their comrades in arms watched, helpless for separation, southerners were cut down in their thousands, many whilst trying to flee. Even from as far as this manse, it was no trial to see the totality of the rout, but the victors allowed them not even the faintest chance of re-amassing and presenting resistance. Mercilessly, the Lannister horse were riding them down.

Sansa thought of crying, of screaming, of raging against the gods who had proven themselves so monstrously cruel. She did no such thing. She owed better than that to the courageous men who had been her last, best hope of salvation, despite that, mayhaps even because, they had been thwarted. So while the westermen beside her toasted the cunning of their lords and cheered their victory, she stayed, with a calm pale face and dry eyes, and she watched them die.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** The Lannisters sprung three surprises on Renly in _Knees Falling_ 's Battle of the Blackwater. The Florents asked for a place in the vanguard, where they would get lots of glory and also lots of deaths. Foolishly, Renly and the Tyrells granted it. Oops. That was the least important of the surprises, though; the battle would probably have been won by the Lannisters without it. The more important two were the royal fleet and the wildfire, since that isolated a large part of Renly's army on the wrong side of the river and allowed the Lannisters to destroy them. Neither would have worked without the other. Without the wildfire, the royal fleet wouldn't have been able to so quickly destroy the bridge, and in the time they spent there, they would have suffered plenty of losses from Renly's own catapults and archers. Without the royal fleet, the bridge wouldn't have been destroyed at all, since Lannister catapults would have to be transported to the bridge on land, and they could be easily overrun and destroyed by Renly's men on the north bank. Renly didn't lose this battle because of incompetence, though he _is_ of course militarily incompetent. The Clash of the Stags was one hell of a lesson to him; he was arrogant, and as a result, he watched his lover die horribly, trampled and drowning in the mud. Watching Loras die is an experience that he will never forget. Ever since, he still isn't a competent commander but he's now self-aware enough to realise that he isn't a competent commander, so he listens to advice from people who are. The problem is, there are matters that were genuinely difficult to foresee. One could argue he should have foreseen the Florent betrayal, and he _did_ foresee that it was a possibility that the royal fleet might arrive and march against him; all those people assembling to harass the royal fleet with arrows and catapults weren't an accident, that was a well-drilled contingency plan. But the Lannisters only had such a gargantuan amount of wildfire (enough to pull off a trick like this) because magic is returning to the world with the hatching of Dany's dragons, thus enabling the pyromancers to make far more wildfire than was thought possible. If we're being reasonable, there's no way Renly could have foreseen that when he hasn't even heard of the hatching yet; it takes a while for news to reach Westeros from so far in the east. Not every defeat is due to one side being really incompetent (and I'm not just talking about defeats in war). Real life isn't that convenient. Sometimes you have a sensible plan and you don't do anything obviously stupid and yet you lose anyway.

Let me emphasise that, as I said in the chapter itself, the bulk of Renly's army was still on the south bank of the river, unharmed, by the end of the battle. Most of Renly's army is still alive and in good order. (If the Lannisters had waited longer, and allowed most or even half of Renly's army to cross, even with all their advantages there would have been a great deal of doubt as to whether they could win the battle on the north bank, due to being so badly outnumbered.) The Lannisters slew about 15,000 men (vastly disproportionate casualties, like what Ramsay Snow achieved against Rodrik Cassel in canon's _A Clash of Kings_ by surprise and treachery, though Ramsay didn't have wildfire) and the Florents' 2,000 men deserted Renly, but Renly still has about 60,000 left, albeit on the wrong side of the river. In canon, Stannis's cause was _de facto_ broken after the Battle of the Blackwater, and, facing the huge numbers of men available to the victorious Lannister-Tyrell alliance, the Starks and Tullys didn't really stand a chance, with what little army they had left; Robb won many battles but he lost his war in a battle he didn't show up to, since if Stannis had won and managed to kill Joffrey and Tommen, the marriage alliance holding Houses Tyrell and Lannister together would have broken. After _Knees Falling_ 's Battle of the Blackwater, however, Renly's cause is wounded but still alive. This is a significant Lannister victory but the war isn't over yet.

Oh and also, just because someone will say it otherwise—no, Petyr the random soldier from Lannisport is not Petyr Baelish, is not employed by Petyr Baelish, is not at all related to Petyr Baelish, and has never met Petyr Baelish. This is not an elaborate conspiracy. It's just that Littlefinger isn't the only man in Westeros who happens to be named Petyr.


	23. Chapter 23

**TYRION**

"What do you mean, they're marching west?" Joffrey Baratheon stamped his foot. "They should be retreating. We _won_!"

"We won the battle," his great-uncle agreed, "but a battle is not a campaign, let alone a war. Recall our last discussion, Your Grace. What was Renly's purpose in the Battle of the Blackwater?"

"To take the capital."

"No. That was the purpose of the overall campaign. In yesterday's battle, he didn't even fall upon our walls. What was the immediate task he sought to complete?"

To Tyrion's amazement, Joffrey seemed to think about it truly. "To cross the Blackwater."

"Very good, Your Grace. Exactly so," Kevan praised, sounding for all the world sincere, and Tyrion muffled a chuckle. _Improvement must be made in small steps, I suppose._ "Lord Renly must still cross the Blackwater if he wishes to take the capital, and I assume he does. Hence why he marches west, to cross it."

"So we'll stop him," Joffrey declared with a smile. "I shall lead the army there myself."

"I wouldn't advise a battle there, Your Grace. Near to the sea as this, the Blackwater flows deep, but it is not so everywhere. No river is." The Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms put his finger on the map. "The Blackwater is wide and swift and treacherous for much of its course, and the nearest ford is nearer to Casterly Rock than to us. That is much too far; Lord Renly dare not wait so long as to complete a journey thither. But a hundred and twenty miles hence—" he moved his finger— "there's a place called Arlan's Bridge. 'Twas named for a royal ancestor of yours, Your Grace. The Storm King Arlan of House Durrandon was the first man to build a bridge there."

"I know of him! He conquered the riverlands, as I shall!"

"Your honourable ancestor Arlan the Third conquered the riverlands, Your Grace. This was King Arlan the Second of His Name. We burnt the bridge there lest Lord Renly cross it." Spotting Joffrey's expression, Ser Kevan Lannister added, "And that isn't the first time; often 't has been cast down and wrought up again, following the fortunes of war. The bridge we burnt is not the one that Arlan built."

Joffrey's wrath subsided.

"Unfortunately, Lord Renly needs no proper bridge. Arlan's Bridge is not a ford—a man can't walk across—but the river flows so shallow there that any galley of war or big-bellied cog has too deep a draught to sail. Your fleet cannot follow his host all way upstream. At Arlan's Bridge, I daresay, he will cross."

"But then what did you fight the battle for, if he's going to cross anyway? What was _your_ purpose?" The king crossed his arms petulantly. "Why did I have to be betrothed to a greyscaled girl if the royal fleet can't stop my traitor uncle from crossing after all?"

"'Tis a long way to Arlan's Bridge from King's Landing, Your Grace. Lord Renly needs must march for weeks. All the while, both ways round, the royal fleet can harry him. Men may cross, and scaling ladders, but thousands of horses can't be taken on hastily built rafts o'er the Blackwater; they and all great siege weapons, such as his battering rams, will have to be left on the south bank. And he lost more than a dozen thousand men in the Battle of the Blackwater. We have won time and his host is diminished. Yet greatest of all is that he cannot now lay siege to King's Landing and hope to take it. Rest assured I shan't throw away all the royal treasury on fattening peasants, but from Essos our gold can buy grain enough to hold the spectre of starvation at bay, long enough for matters between House Lannister and House Stark to be settled one way or the other. So he cannot afford to wait; he needs must take the city by storm; and such an attempt, against high and well-guarded walls, is the only way a host the size of his can be defeated by a host the size of ours."

"You say 'settled one way or the other'," the king observed, startling Tyrion with the perception. He cast a suspicious eye on his Lord Regent. "If grandfather wins he gathers the strength of the west and comes to reinforce us, I understand, my traitor uncle can't allow that. But what if grandfather loses?"

Kevan's voice was calm as still water. "Then we are all dead men walking, caught between the stag's antlers and the wolf's claws. So let us hope he does not."

At the end of the lesson, Tyrion stepped out from behind a pillar after Joffrey had gone. "You are doing good work with him, uncle."

"I hope so," said Ser Kevan Lannister, taking a seat. "'Tis madness that he hasn't been taught how to think like this already. My oath on it, 't has been many years since I've seen my lord brother quite so wroth as he seemed in the letter he sent to me after I told him of Joffrey's ignorance. He's fighting a war for the trueborn son and heir of Robert Baratheon while Robert himself didn't trouble to teach his son the first thing about ruling vassals, leading hosts and fighting wars. Oh, I'll grant you, the boy's handy enough with a sword, considering his tender years—naught special, but not exceptional in the other way either—but where was King Robert when other fathers, better men, were teaching their sons how to be a man?"

Drily, Tyrion supplied, "Chataya's."

"You may be right," Kevan said with a sigh. "Still, 'tis a monstrously poor deed. Any man, be he king or pauper, should teach his son how to ply his trade after he's gone, how to carry out the duties that befit his station. What shall his son do elsewise?"

"Cut kittens from the bellies of pregnant cats. Tear at the dresses of little girls. On occasion, execute a great lord and start a war. You know, generally make a nuisance of himself."

Kevan Lannister was unamused but did not deem Tyrion's words unfair. "Quite."

They stood together by the window, uncle and nephew, Lord Regent and King's Hand, man and half-man. Tyrion looked out, beyond King's Landing's southeastern wall where watchmen pranced in cloaks of gold, beyond the flattened rubble, ash and dust that had once been the shacks and houses of the waterfront ere his red cloaks had burnt them to deprive Lord Renly of a way to climb the walls, beyond the cruel swift currents of the river Blackwater, unto the cleared and empty land of silent tree-stumps where the southern host's camp had once been. Lord Renly's whole host had marched with him westward. There had not even been an attempt at leaving an army for rearguard, to protect stonethrowers from the Lannister army if it were to cross to the south bank. It seemed that the pretender dared not risk leaving men on the south bank, lest they be unable to take part in the battle; he meant to throw all his sixty-thousand against King's Landing's walls.

Tyrion's eyes returned to the swarm of red-cloaked soldiers of the westerlands and gold-cloaked City Watch who guarded those walls. _I hope that they will be enough._

At the dawn of the day of battle, the sky was ocean-blue without a cloud in sight and sunrise spilt over the tourney grounds like a pool of molten copper, forge-fresh. The standards of the army that had come hither yesterday eve danced in the breeze of the Narrow Sea, a forest of loud competing colour, highest among them the prancing, crowned black stag of the royal House Baratheon. The ruin of the local woodland marred the morning beauty, full of stumps and ash where the men of the west had sought to deny the southerners use of the wood to build weapons of siege, but it did not do so overmuch. Greater harm came from the campfires of the mass of tents, like a new forest wrought not of bark but of pale cloth.

The tourney grounds were clean, green and pristine. Lord Renly's armed camp lay beyond them, lacking stonethrowers and war-bred destriers but overspilling full of men, countless men-at-arms in boiled leather and shining mail. On the other side there stood the high walls of King's Landing, unyielding as sun-baked stone. Today the pretender would close that gap, cast the dice and pray the gods were watching. There would be no siege; the city had the food it needed. _In father's words_ , Tyrion thought, leaning against the pink granite of the wall, _today matters with Lord Renly will be settled, one way or another._

He sighed, drinking in the dawn-light one last time, and stepped down from the balcony. In his chambers, Podrick Payne helped him don his armour, not any man's chainmail but full plate that fit lightly on his body, coated garishly with gold. There was duty to be done.

Tyrion left the Tower of the Hand without a backward glance and told Pod to help lift him up onto his horse, which was already waiting, fetched for him from the stables. Pod handed him a helm and heavy oaken shield and he rode out of the Red Keep; its portcullis had already been raised for his uncle, who had left shortly before him.

Tyrion's party followed Kevan's for a while, but they parted ways when the Lord Regent turned left onto the Hook while his nephew followed King's Way longer. Kevan had chosen to directly lead the fighting at the King's Gate, whereas Tyrion was to hold the Lion Gate, which lay to the northwest of that. As King's Way reached the foot of Aegon's High Hill, he saw a man drawing a heavy wagon through the city, even at this early hour in the morning. "Halt," he called, and was obeyed.

"M'lord Hand." The carter, a tall thin man with a bushy beard, looked more confused than anything else.

"By the order of the Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, a curfew has been imposed upon the city for the duration of the battle, save for those in the defence of the city," Tyrion told him. "Return to your home. For now the streets are needed for the movement of troops, but you're free to ply your trade tomorrow."

"I need these sent today, m'lord, beggin' your pardon, m'lord. I'm a law-abiding fellow, m'lord, an' I ain't heard nothing 'bout no curfew."

"I was speaking with the Lord Regent less than half an hour ago," Tyrion said, "I'm quite certain. It will be proclaimed once we've gathered some criers. Now begone."

The carter scowled at Tyrion and his guards as he turned his wares around and trudged off the great road, though he dared not disobey. _There's one more to curse the twisted little monkey demon_ , Tyrion thought sourly. _Though at least he's not a fisherman, or it would have been more than a scowl._

The sun today was too hot and too bright. Tyrion felt like he was cooking alive in his armour, but knew better than to put his visor up. The men whom he was to command were clad similarly. The Lion Gate which led onto the goldroad, and thence to the westerlands, was filled with carvings of the beast that was its namesake, but he was nonetheless pleased to see the scarlet cloaks and lion-crafted helmets of the sworn men of House Lannister. His uncle Kevan had worked miracles with the discipline of the City Watch, and they had not given great cause for complaint a day fewer than a full turn of the moon ago, when Lord Renly had been defeated on the Blackwater. However, Tyrion remembered how far Littlefinger's corruption had crept into the gold cloaks, as so much else in the city. He was glad to have good Lannister men-at-arms instead.

 _Littlefinger._ It was easy to forget that the man had been in the city not long past. Tyrion had been too lenient with the men, he had decided. He had known the man for an enemy and refused to make a move. _My lord uncle was right to banish him._ The crown was in debt and the royal treasury was poorly, but they were not crippled, and a dangerous traitor with motives and means unknown—for Tyrion had sent men and there had been no sign of Petyr Baelish in Castle Spilbroke—had been expelled from the capital.

Tyrion spared a thought, now, just briefly, for where the man had gone, before dismissing it from his mind. Littlefinger was not with Lord Renly, nor with Robb Stark, the eunuch had assured them. He had more important things to deal with than one traitor. Sixty-thousand well-armed southerners were camped outside his walls.

The southern camp was awakening. Tyrion watched uneasily as more and more men left their tents and donned their mail. In the light of the sun, merely the night watch had been piercing bright; the whole host was like snow on the field, such was the shine of sun on steel. Boys rushed to present fighting men with their armour and their helms and weapons, and cups of wine to sate their thirst. Ladders, for scaling the walls, were everywhere. Stonethrowers, from humble scorpions to great trebuchets, and battering rams and other such great engines of siege were absent, destroyed by the very men who had carried them so far from Highgarden so that the Lannisters could not get them, for they could not be borne across the Blackwater by raft. But archers, armed not with crossbows or shortbows but the storied longbows of the south of Westeros, were present in their thousands. No fool, Lord Renly, or mayhaps his lords commander, had surrounded his camp with a thick wall of pikemen, long weapons bristling like the spines of a hedgehog, only no hedgehog's spines had such marvellous points that caught the dawn's light, red on the steel. Any host of horse that sought to strike the southern army while they slept would have had a cruel welcome.

But there were not just men-at-arms and knights and squires and the rich pavilions of lords in the host of the pretender. There were grooms leading horses, camp followers coupling with the soldiers, and servants of every age and sex drawing water and carrying messages and tending tables. Other standards proliferated, especially House Tyrell's rose, but everywhere there streamed the black stag on gold of Baratheon.

Troubled, Tyrion glanced around him. His immediate environs were full of westermen, good battle-hardened men-at-arms who had come from his lord father's army, but not all the defenders were as reliable as that. He knew a great stretch of the river-facing wall downstream of the King's Gate were held by westermen, along with the King's Gate itself and all of the walls from there to the Old Gate. Gold cloaks were guarding other gates—the Dragon Gate, the Iron Gate and the River Gate—that were considered less critical to the defence of the city, as Lord Renly was not like to make his way past all the other gates, scoured by archers and scorpions, to strike them. And men of all sorts, no matter be they cloaked in red or gold or neither, took part in the numerous reserves that Ser Kevan had placed throughout the city to reinforce any part of the walls that was hard pressed. The sole exception was the Gate of the Gods, which was held not by westermen but by the vassals of Lord Alester Florent, who had been gifted with Highgarden and raised to Lord Paramount of the Mander, Warden of the South and associated expansive titles at King Joffrey's pleasure. Save for the Reachmen whom he had promised princely rewards, few liked Lord Alester. Even his brother Axell, Lord of Brightwater Keep, who had been made master of ships as a tactful manner of acknowledging the royal fleet's allegiance to his niece Selyse Baratheon, kept a distance from the man who had sat in Lord Renly's war councils from the beginning, ate his food and drunk his wine and then betrayed him in the midst of a great battle. But the treachery he had committed had made it essential for him to see Joffrey victorious over Renly and House Tyrell if he wished to keep his head, so, in a perverse way, he was almost trusted. Tyrion had no doubt that Lord Alester would fight loyally to the best of his ability. The Florents had sought to rule the Reach ever since Aegon the Dragon ended the line of the Gardener kings on the Field of Fire and loftily raised their stewards to mastery of the Reach, defying the other ancient Houses of that kingdom. The favour of House Lannister and King Joffrey was the best hope of achieving their ambition they had had in the last three-hundred years. They would follow through.

Tyrion knew much of the city's defences, but he would have felt safer if he could see them, as he could see the unimaginable vastness of the host of foes. He wished he was in the Red Keep, watching safely from above. He was unaccustomed to this manner of seeing war, unable to see the broad strokes of what was happening, his sight thinned by the slits that served as eyeholes in his helmet. He had spent much of the Battle of the Blackwater on _Fury_ , the royal fleet's flagship, with its admiral, the then-Ser Axell Florent. Lady Selyse had insisted upon it, fearing that House Lannister would sue for peace after sending her men to die to win goodwill from Lord Renly. That had not been a joy, but he had been blind to Lord Renly's host for much of the battle, and for the rest he had exulted in the exquisite satisfaction of his plan being executed well against a surprised enemy. Oh, there had been arrows, but he would not compare the danger of those to the mortal peril he was like to face on the walls against the host seeking to storm them.

There was naught that he could do of it, however. Ser Kevan thought that the men would lose heart if their lords refused to share the danger with them, that they would believe their lords doubted the possibility of victory and thus begin to doubt it themselves, and he was the veteran of a hundred battles, and Lord Regent besides. In this city his word was law.

Lord Renly was gathering his soldiers. His left flank was led by Lester Morrigen, Lord of Crow's Nest, with a tail of his fellow stormlords. The southern host's centre was the province of Lord Rowan of Goldengrove, who Tyrion recalled had served Lord Renly in that capacity before, when the Lord of Storm's End had put an end to his brother Stannis's ambitions, and his life. The right flew the huntsman sigil of House Tarly, whose Lord Randyll had once won a battle against Robert Baratheon, a feat of which few men indeed could boast. And the rear, the reserve, bore the standard of its king with no commander's standard next to it; doubtless Lord Renly was there, as he had been in the Clash of the Stags and the Battle of the Blackwater.

At last the trumpets brayed their challenge, high and strong, and the army of the stormlands and the Reach advanced. This was no mounted charge, swift and strong and seeking to break the enemy with the shock of impact. Walls could not be thus taken. But the sight of so many men marching with martial purpose was also, in its own way, formidable. If a charge was a shadowcat bounding upon you, shredding you with its teeth and claws, this was a bear walking steadily towards you, slow and vast and patient, while you have nowhere to run.

The southerners thinned their ranks as they drew nearer, seeking to envelop a great part of the length of the walls, assailing them in different places at will. Tyrion tilted his head every which way to try to keep sight of them. He could not. Blindly, stupidly, he could not help but think, _There are so many._

Here at the Lion Gate, under the Rowans' golden trees on silver standards, mailed men rushed forward. Elsewhere mayhaps it was elsewise, for all that Tyrion knew. He could not afford to look far. "Nock," Tyrion called to his longbowmen once he judged the southerners to be in range, "draw, loose," but it did them little harm. Arrows soared from the wall's murder-holes, but it was no easy thing to hit a running man. They were not so close together that the longbowmen could be assured of striking true.

They proceeded. Heated oil and sand and burning pitch were hurtled at them from the wall, but for all that some among their number died screaming, it did not slow them down. _These are brave men_ , part of Tyrion thought in admiration, while another part saw them coming closer with their weapons in their hands, while he himself was on the wall and could not leave it, and gibbered in helpless fear.

The southerners closed in. _Dear gods, there are so many._ He saw them grow rapidly larger, nearer, saw the grapnels, ropes and ladders, saw the light reflecting off their helms, their mail, all steel, the hunger in their eyes.

And that was when, he knew. "Drop!"

His men-at-arms heeded him, and with the dropping of the pots green fire took light among the southerners. The attackers gave voice to their torment, high and long, drawn out till they were dying. Wildfire was too scarce to use a pot to kill one or two men; it had to be reserved till its victims were close enough that they might give spark to each other, lest the defenders of King's Landing waste the precious few thousand pots that the Battle of the Blackwater had left them.

Even now, with the Reachmen so extremely close together, Tyrion had known it would not be enough. Ladders clattered hard against the walls, grapnels were flung—one came too high and struck some poor man several yards from Tyrion, knocking him off the wall to his death—and men pulled themselves up rope and ladder to ascend. The world became a mad, chaotic struggle. Tyrion tried to pull loose a grapnel that had dug into a cleft between blocks of red stone, but he had not the strength for it, and had to leap away when a taller man climbing up swung a sword at him. Some nameless western man-at-arms— _thanks be to the Warrior_ —managed to cut the thick stout rope, and they plummeted. Behind him, he heard breathing. A chainmailed man was pulling himself onto the wall from a ladder when Tyrion battered his sword away with his own and kicked him down, bolstered with the power of the forward leap that had brought him to the scene. The man fell, but Tyrion's whole leg shuddered under the impact and he saw stars for a few moments ere a westerman pulled him up. A moment later his saviour was slain, a dirk through a shoulder-joint of his armour, and Tyrion, staggering, hurled himself out of the path of the killer's sword. He hacked at the man's unarmoured foot, and another man hit him with a mace that soon dribbled grey with bits of brain.

Tyrion pulled himself up, cursing his right leg's throb, and met a wondrously brave soul who had clambered up after being burnt by hot sand. He threw himself at the staggering Reachman, ruining his balance, and they wrestled on the ground for a while. Minutes passed, or moments, and Tyrion's sword was wrenched from his hand. He wet himself as the man tried to put a sword through the joint between fauld and breastplate, but a dark-haired westerman pulled open his attacker's visor and shoved a dagger through his skull. He almost wept with relief. The weight of the corpse was overbearing, but nobody helped, so Tyrion had to push it off himself, and he picked up some southerner's discarded axe just as another southerner near brained him with a blow from a morningstar.

Another group of men, the sixth or seventh or, as may be, the twenty-seventh for all he knew, was drawing nearer to the Lion Gate. Tyrion barked a command while struggling against a pothelmed man, and, in addition to the arrows flying at them, his men tried to drop some more pots of wildfire. Only, one of them was struck by a longsword in the struggle, staggered, and Mad King Aerys's pear-shaped pot of fiery death flew from his hand and fell inside the city walls upon one of the nearby houses. The place went up at once, the magic green flames giving spark to a much greater fire of orange ones. Men and women ran screaming from there. Tyrion shouted at some of the red cloaks in the city to try to put it out, but stopped paying heed when a Reachman charged at him, trying to knock him off the wall. A strong, plate-armoured westerman tried to pull off the Reachman's helmet while his thoughts were elsewhere. The southerner noticed the attempt, and soon he and the westerman were locked in battle, his former quarry altogether forgotten.

Tyrion drove his stolen axe into a southern swordsman's wrist, between vambrace and gauntlet, and hurled down the sword at a trio of men climbing a ladder they had set upon the wall. A westerman, or rather his corpse, fell over and near knocked Tyrion to his death, but that he grasped some comrade and almost had his hand chopped off until he was recognised. Up, and a nearby scream of a westerman killed by his friend's burning pitch through mischance made Tyrion start, saving his life from a spear that would elsewise have pierced him and now merely clanged off his helm, and he stuck the axe into the soft flesh of the luckless spearman's throat.

He fought on, and on, and on. His arms and his armour were red with blood, some of it his own. He was bleeding from the Warrior knew how many wounds. Part of his face was raw and red with a glancing blow from a mace that, had it struck inches truer, would surely have slain him, and his left leg was cut at the joint between cuisse and greave so deeply that it was growing numb and stiff-straight. Tyrion jabbed at a man in boiled leather with a spear that he had picked up one way or another, and as the southern freerider gurgled and died, no man came to replace him. Gradually the flare of instinct gave way to confusion, then to understanding. It seemed the flood of men onto the walls had stopped for a while.

Tyrion caught his breath. There were still Reachmen near the walls, many of them. The battle was not over yet. But the southerners scaling the wall near the Lion Gate had seemed numberless, and however mad that thought may be, it was a relief to know, not only know as an abstract thought but _know_ , in his bones, that they were not. Some of the houses near the walls had been burnt, though not the desolation of flattened rubble and blackened ash that had once been the waterfront. The soldiers being held as reserves within the city were helping to control the fire, lest it hinder their movements. The sun was high in the sky now, nearer noon than dawn, and by the golden light it spilt over the world he saw that while Lord Renly's reserve held back much of the southern host was heavily engaged… and nevertheless failing. Tyrion felt a warm and unexpected glow of pride in his men. Against all the fury of the south, King's Landing was holding.

Tyrion waved away some gold cloak shouting for men to preserve public order in the east of the city, to clear Muddy Way and Fishmonger's Square of obstinate locals not heeding the curfew, so that soldiers and wagons of supplies could move swiftly through there. He had more important tasks at hand than unclogging King's Landing's arteries. Already he could see Reachmen under House Rowan's standards forming up again to assail the Lion Gate. The wrath of the rebel Lord of Storm's End was not expended yet.

With a great cry, together, more southerners made for the wall. Longbows twanged and arrows hissed, without stopping them, except for some only. Dying men screamed when struck by hot sand or oil or burning pitch or, worse yet, wildfire. The alchemists' green flames, spell-born fire that could not be put out, evoked in their foes an unsurpassed dread. Tyrion hefted the spear that he had gained, and he fought on.

Further hours did not dam the flow of blood of this battle's viciousness. Tyrion, flailing on the ground, drove a stolen dagger between the bevor and the gorget of a Reachman who would have killed him. The taller man collapsed and gurgled out his last breath, and Tyrion, struggling, stood, to face a man-at-arms who had just clambered off a ladder. This foe caught sight of another westerman and tried to face him, not noticing the dwarf rising far below his eyes. Tyrion hacked at the southerner's legs and tried to snatch his sword as he fell, only to reel away from a cut by the falling foe that would have slit his throat.

As he struggled to regain his balance, a lion-halfhelmed westerman with a brown beard shouted, "Look! M'lord!"

Restricted by the thin slits of his helmet, Tyrion's eyes followed the bearded man's gauntlet till he took a sword against one of his vambraces. It was a mighty blow, and struck near to the joint, though— _thank the Warrior_ —not upon it. He fell, ears ringing, right forearm screaming its pain at him, right vambrace bent badly out of shape. As he picked himself up, he retreated from the fighting behind four westermen whom he summoned with a shout to guard his person. Cursing loudly and quite profanely, he lifted his visor— _I need to see in this gods-damned helm; if the gods are kind I won't be shot this moment_ —and, by pure instinct placing his hand in front of his face, as if that could possibly protect him, he gazed out in the direction he had been told to look.

—and recoiled.

A horde of thin and dirty men—hundreds, or was it thousands?—had gathered in the eastern part of the city, the part that faced the river. They were shouting something, a chant that, as it fell into a steady beat, with many throats acting as one, was heard over even the clamour of battle:

" _NO FIRE_! _NO FIRE_! _NO FIRE_! _NO FIRE_!"

Men-at-arms from nearby in the city, whoever could be spared, were rushing to confront the crowd. A group of one or two dozen Lannister men-at-arms, swords bared, met them in Fishmonger's Square. _Cold steel will deter this mob_ , he thought, till the crowd howled with rage upon espying the redness of their cloaks and threw itself upon them. Bodies abounded, most of them belonging to the cityfolk, but by the end of it the westermen had been so cruelly torn apart that there were no chunks large enough to be called a corpse. They continued to chant: " _NO FIRE_!"

Someone in the area had a head on his shoulders. More men were coming to put down the riot, gold cloaks, swiftly and in good order. This was a large group, and Tyrion spied a glint of light off the iron hand of Ser Jacelyn Bywater. He had never felt gladder at his choice for the Lord Commander of the City Watch. There must have been several hundred watchmen there, all armed. It was past certain that would be enough to defeat the mob and disperse it.

Ser Jacelyn was ahorse, riding this way and that way in front of his men, addressing them. _What is he doing?_ Tyrion wondered in irritation. _This is no time for speeches and games. Break the mob and have done._

At last Ser Jacelyn turned to face the crowd, his sword raised, letting loose a rallying cry… and a trembling thin youth in a gold cloak stabbed him in the back.

Tyrion's humours turned to ice. _No no no no no no no…_

The gold cloaks there dissolved into a mess of fighting, some trying to avenge their Lord Commander and others joining the crowd in mutiny. _King's Landing men_ , Tyrion remembered, _King's Landing born and bred, every man of them. The wildfire… that's what has the cityfolk up in arms… they saw the Battle of the Blackwater, they're afraid… the wildfire being used on the walls… the wildfire…_

There was no time for pondering. The people of eastern King's Landing, facing the river Blackwater, the fisherfolk, those who hated the Lannisters more than anyone else in the capital, were closing in on the River Gate. Of its guard, composed purely of gold cloaks, some tried to fight the mob. Others, whether from genuine comradeship with the cityfolk or simply fear, refrained. The battle was short. The people had the numbers, and none of the gates of King's Landing had been built to resist a mass assault from the inside. With a creak of poorly oiled hinges, the River Gate opened.

"My lord?" One of his knights was shaking him. " _My lord_!"

"A hundred men to the River Gate," Tyrion snapped. "No. Five-hundred. And be quick about it. Ser Petyr, you command them. And send a boy, call in that fucking reserve or else we're all dead men walking."

Someone in the host opposite must have seen the opportunity. There was a call of trumpets, clear and magnificent, and suddenly the great golden banner with the black stag was moving. The southern host's reserve was committing at last. Seizing the moment, Renly Baratheon whirled to the right of the right flank of his own army, for Lord Randyll Tarly's wing was already committed and could not swiftly withdraw. The pretender led his charge on foot through a deadly rain wrought by longbowmen and scorpions, a rain that slew some but was impotent to alter the sheer speed and number of the foe. The southerners went beyond the King's Gate, filling the narrow strip of land between the river and the river-facing wall. In all other circumstances, the charge would have been madness. With the River Gate open, it might just work.

Kevan Lannister was roaring orders. Thousands of red cloaks departed from the fiercest fighting, in the south of the city near the King's Gate, and rushed to fend off Lord Renly and the mob. From the walls and from throughout the city, fighting men were summoned to the River Gate.

The scarlet flood of new Lannister soldiers, some of them mounted knights in full plate, cut through the undisciplined crowd, including the mutinous gold cloaks there. The mob did not last long in open battle against an army with bare steel and the sense of urgency that made them willing to use it, but nonetheless they lasted long enough. Reachmen and stormlanders entering at a run clashed with westermen and Renly Baratheon's standard fluttered, yards _within_ the walls of the city.

Tyrion returned to the fighting on the wall against the southern host's centre—with the dire depletion of men-at-arms that he himself had ordered, he needed every man—but that did not last long. Within an hour, as Renly's men pushed Joffrey's back, Mathis Rowan's Reachmen were slowly disengaging from the effort in order to come in through their comrades' widening foothold in the city. When he found himself idle for a whole minute, a new thing to feel, Tyrion retreated behind some of his men-at-arms to look northwest, where Lester Morrigen's stormlanders had almost wholly abandoned their efforts against the city's northwestern wall, then turned his head east, towards the fighting around the River Gate, and at once perceived what had to be perceived.

In that single instant, he made his choice.

Tyrion called a few dozen men to him, as many as his voice could reach. There was no time to lose. With the horses long gone to send men to the River Gate, they dashed on foot through the city. His own stunted legs would have slowed them down but for a thoughtful soul who picked his lord up like a child and held him as he ran. Some of the men he had led at the Lion Gate remained there to fight off Lord Rowan's increasingly feeble assaults against King's Landing's southwestern wall as their foes withdrew. Others went straight to the city's east, to fight Lord Renly. How many would do which? Who knew? Who cared? They all knew the Lion Gate was not where the battle would be decided.

Tyrion's party hurtled around the foot of Visenya's Hill; ascending it now would be a waste and a peril. Thus they came onto the Street of Steel, and the city's central square thence. Tyrion looked for long seconds at King's Way, where the Red Keep loomed tall and strong above him. Those seconds meant everything, or mayhaps nothing at all. Then, cursing himself, _witless dwarf_ , he turned away and followed Rosby Road northeastward. _I will have to live with that choice._

Soon they turned left into the alleys of Flea Bottom where the houses often leant so far over the road that one could scarcely see the noon-day sun, setting a brisk pace, around the foot of the Hill of Rhaenys. Townsfolk watched them from windows with sullen eyes, but they did not attack. The people here did not despise House Lannister as much as the fisherfolk did. This was a large and well-armed party. Here, hate was still weaker than fear.

In time they cleared Flea Bottom and emerged in the far north of the city. Here it was almost absurdly calm. With the Hill of Rhaenys in the way, one could not even see the fighting in the east of King's Landing. A gold cloak with a salt-and-pepper beard demanded, "Who goes there?"

"Tyrion of House Lannister, Hand of the King," Tyrion snarled, lifting a bloody sword, "and I am out of patience. You'll let us past if you know what's good for you."

In voiceless dread, the man obeyed.

His nephew appeared atop the wall, flanked by four white shadows, golden-haired, his exquisite gilded armour still pristine, not spattered with blood and gore like Tyrion's plainer set. Against a foe from the south, the Dragon Gate had never been likely to see much fighting, hence why Kevan had judged it a good place to put a king who should be seen in battle with his men-at-arms but who had, after all, seen only three-and-ten namedays. "Uncle!" he cried. "What news of the battle?"

"Lord Renly and several thousand men of his are through the River Gate," Tyrion told him curtly. "Our men are holding them off as best they can, but their toehold is growing. The battle is lost, Joffrey, the city is lost, and you'll be coming with me if you don't—"

"Lost?" Joffrey squawked. "'Tis my city, my men will yet throw out—"

" _It is lost!_ Every man here can attest to it." As he spoke, Tyrion took a long look at the ruined right vambrace digging into his flesh, then discarded it with a grunt of disgust. As he tore it off his own blood splashed on Joffrey, along with the blood and flesh and brains of other men on the outside of it. The boy king flinched. "Lord Renly has more than thrice our numbers, we can't win a battle of attrition and yet that's what it has become. Now he's contained in the east of the city; 't won't last forever. Your only choice is whether to come with me or die here."

"But what—what are you do—"

"I'm saving your life, _Your Grace_." He addressed the Kingsguard. "Clegane, sers, your king requires your protection, know it though he may not. Help me get him to the Iron Gate. The royal fleet can save him; they've already left their berths on the riverside lest the southerners take them. A galley to Dragonstone and we're away. 'Tis the only choice Renly can't follow. With me!"

Ser Preston Greenfield and Ser Alyn Stackspear, newer to this service, hesitated. The other two did not. Sandor Clegane picked up his lifelong charge like a sack of potatoes, grabbing Joffrey's sword lest the young king think to resist, and Ser Meryn Trant drew his sword, flanking him. "Come," Tyrion added to the men-at-arms at the Dragon Gate, "'tis better to spend more of your lives in service to your king than to die without use here." They fell into ranks behind him. All in all they must have numbered more than a hundred now.

They set off.

"But what about my crown, my throne, my mother, my crossbow?" yelled Joffrey as they ran. "Go to the Red Keep." When the party did not immediately obey, he added, "I command you, I'll have your heads, 'tis a royal command!"

"The Red Keep has not the men to hold if the city does not," Tyrion said without looking back at the boy held in the Hound's burly arms. Ser Kevan had made that choice. If the city fell, even Lord Tywin's army would not suffice to take it back from Lord Renly, given both the defender's advantage and the gift of numbers, so in time the Red Keep would inevitably fall. Cersei had wanted a Kingsguard too, but her uncle had denied her; save for Ser Arys Oakheart in Dorne, Ser Lyle Crakehall with Prince Tommen and Jaime chained in Riverrun, the Kingsguard were to be with Joffrey on the walls. There had been no use in wasting lots of able-bodied men in guarding the Red Keep if they would be useless at that task and it would harm the defence of the city. "His Grace the King has seen three-and-ten namedays. Ignore him. Come with me."

They tore through the city at a run. The shouts and screams and metal clangs of battle were coming ever closer. At last they came upon the Iron Gate. "Thanks be to the gods," muttered Tyrion when he saw the number of guards there. Most of the men-at-arms who had been protecting it had been drawn away, towards the fighting in the east.

"The king's with us!" yelled Tyrion as he was put down from the tall westerman's arms. "Let us through and come with me. The city's lost, needs must we save whatever we can!"

The men guarding the gate were lowborn but not stupid. They could hear the battle as well as anyone could. Most of their comrades in arms had probably deserted already. Those left were thankful for an official excuse to do the same. How many fled with him and how many merely away, he could not tell, but he was glad to hear the sound of the Iron Gate opening. He felt no guilt for that; the Battle of King's Landing was already beyond hope.

His deformed legs, one of them badly hurt and numb, carried him swift as they could towards the waves that crashed against the shore. In that moment, for all of his sickness in voyages, he found in the depths of his heart a deep love for the Narrow Sea. "We have the king, we have the king!" he roared at the top of his voice to the galleys, and— _thank the gods!_ —a few of them halted for him. "You, there. You, there. You, there," Tyrion ordered, pointing with his bloody sword to herd his men onto the ships. In passing, he had thought there were a hundred, but no, he had accumulated many times more than that. Mayhaps they had just rallied to his small initial group for strength in numbers, or to follow someone, anyone, who seemed to have some manner of plan. He chose a grand royal galley of four-hundred oars, to keep the king, and the Kingsguard took Joffrey on-board at once, and he was glad to see that ship, _King Robert's Hammer_ , leave once it was full, but there were hundreds of men-at-arms fleeing the city who needed to be directed, crowding onto the ships. These men might be needed. It was his duty, Tyrion knew, to preserve whatever he could of House Lannister's strength, else this battle would be a deathblow to the west.

They were not alone. Southerners were coming to the ships, some through the Iron Gate, others around the sides of the city. At their head came a knight in a ridiculous cloak of pure green. Most of their fellow southerners were busy in the city—Renly Baratheon's standards were being hoisted everywhere, displacing the lion and stag that shared the banner of Joffrey—but this Rainbow Guard knight, whatever his name, had more than enough. "Back water! Back water!" Tyrion cried, and the ships moved to obey him, rowing away from the seaside; but it was no quick or easy thing to get a great ship into motion, and before the ship that Tyrion was on, a smaller older galley, could enter water too deep for a man to run, a soaking but strong party of southerners dragged themselves aboard. The westermen and gold cloaks here outnumbered their foes, but the stormlanders and Reachmen were fresher and better-armoured and—which mayhaps mattered more—the defenders were fleeing from defeat, whereas they had tasted the sweet nectar of victory.

The world descended once more into a red hell of chaos. "Defend the Hand!" howled the black-of-hair westerman who had borne Tyrion so far, but it was fruitless. This was not an ordered army, but a mess of men who had escaped a lost battle, many of them, he suspected, by desertion. There was too little discipline. It was every man for himself. Tyrion grabbed at his sword and waded into battle, guarded by a trio of westermen who had been in his company at the Lion Gate. The rest must have been dispersed on other galleys of the royal fleet, or else deserted or dead; it was hard to say. He drove it between the cuisse and greave of an armoured southerner who had not seen him, wounding the man's leg and sending him crashing to the ground. Another man, a burly knight, crying with rage at his companion's fall, caught sight of him then, and sent a flying slash that struck Tyrion's breastplate. The armour saved his life but the greatsword's blow was so powerful he utterly lost his balance. Swaying, he tried to regain it, and flailed out with his sword. He missed. His sword clanged off a greave. Then the greatsword was brought down, a second blow.

The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt, white and hot and all-devouring. His mind could dwell on nothing else. Distantly, Tyrion was aware he was on the floor. Only the thud of his head on the wooden deck told him that much. His sight certainly did not. There was just blood, his own blood, so much of it, so much, so much, _oh gods oh gods so much too much too much—_

When red turned black, it was a mercy.


	24. Chapter 24

**SANSA**

The day of the Battle of King's Landing dawned with a clean sea breeze and a sky clear and blue. Sansa watched the sun rise. The Lord of Storm's End and his rebel host had arrived yesterday eve, so she had told a maid to wake her early and today she had dressed swiftly and made her way to the manse's highest window.

Grey-haired Willem was already there. "Mornin', m'lady," he said.

"Good morning, ser," she replied stiffly. The men-at-arms had long since stopped trying to make her speak to them less formally. It was a polite form of address, and she had no wish for this to be a place of familiarity, nor one of comfort.

"Didna expect you here so early-like." His tone had a question in it.

 _My fate will be decided here, along with the city's. It is not a moment I should like to miss._ But all she said was, "I was restless, ser."

Other westermen drifted into the chamber, men of every age and shape of face, boys, young men, middle-aged men and greybeards, all of whose names she knew. She also knew why she must hate them. When the southerners had come back to the capital, she, lacking a godswood or a proper sept, had prayed before an icon in the likeness of the Warrior to give victory to their arms and to bring about the ruin of King Joffrey. She supposed these men, men who she had been living with, had made opposite prayers.

"Here to watch Lord Renly's ruin!" cried a brown-haired and fiercely-moustached man named Richard. "Death to traitors… 'twill be a glorious day. Praise be to the Warrior for the victory on the Blackwater. May he bring a dozen more!"

"A dozen more!" toasted the other men-at-arms, and drank heartily.

"Death to traitors, aye," said Willem, "but not all victories are as cheaply won as the Battle of the Blackwater. This'll be a bloody day, my word on it, no matter whether lion or rose prevail."

"Don't you mean, stag prevails?" asked Josua, whose cheeks were speckled with blond stubble.

Willem laughed. It was a deep rumble, though neither cruel nor mocking. "Tell it true, lad, d'you believe that?"

They watched the battle for many hours. As the morning sun rose in the sky, the rebels rushed to the city's southwestern wall and upward, though most of them that climbed swiftly fell down again. The air was filled with the clatter of metal and the shouts and screams of men living and dying both. Sansa could not say who was winning. It seemed a chaotic mess.

The western men-at-arms in her company seemed at first pleased, then worried, then once again rising in confidence, and for a time she feared the southerners would fail to break through. But at last, in the hour of the hawk, not long after day's noon, they all heard a clamour of voices to the east, obscured from view by Visenya's Hill and the one dome and seven towers of the Great Sept of Baelor that crowned it. The raucous chant was at first too disorganised to hear from as far as this manse, but soon their voices came together and Sansa could make out the words: " _NO FIRE_! _NO FIRE_!"

"What's that, you reckon?"

"Naught but a bunch of rioters," Philip answered his younger comrade. "Awful foolish of 'em to make a fuss durin' a battle, though. They've earned a hard hand for that, see if they 'aven't."

The chanting did not fade away. It did at some points turn into a rougher roar of hateful screaming, but that was no quieter. Then—it could not have been more than ten minutes later—there was the unmistakeable creak of gigantic hinges opening.

Trumpets brayed their call, a sound high and clear and golden. Coloured standards flew. To the west, a man in green plate armour with a helm adorned by antlers turned to his men and spoke a few words, far off and stolen by the wind. There was a cheer, and he turned, lifting a sword that caught the light and turned snow-white and blinding, and when he charged, without once looking back, there were ten-thousand men or more who charged in fervent loyalty behind him.

Sansa pictured him putting that sword through Joffrey's soft, pink, delicate neck. She thought, _It's better than the songs._

She was an isle of calm in the midst of chaos. "The River Gate is open! The traitors come thither! They need help!" came a yell from golden-haired Jonothor, who had a habit of stating the obvious. Other men's exclamations tended more towards profanity. It took some time for a measure of control to be reasserted.

" _Enough_!" roared Willem. "Are you men or mice, to scurry so? The rest o' you, you'll do m'lord no good if you leave our charge all lonesome, get 'er raped by a mob, nor if y'all stay 'ere with the Lady Sansa. Go out—Philip will command—help defend the gate. Take the door guards as you go. Harry, Jon, Patrek, you're with me."

Such was the authority in his voice that all the other men obeyed him. Once they were gone, Willem turned to Sansa. "Sorry you 'ad to 'ear that, m'lady. Rough folk, they needs rough words. We ain't watchin' any more. You come with us."

"To the Red Keep?" Jonothor asked.

"Nah. Won't open their gates now for love nor money, sure not for the likes of us. We go to the cellar. Mob'll likely take all the food an' candlesticks an' such they can grab ou' o' the manse—can't be avoided, they'll need the men elsewise the city'll fall—but manse isn't our charge, you are."

There was no use in trying to disobey. She followed them down the nicely polished wooden stairs, and Patrek opened a door. It was a wine-cellar, and she found herself pressed between some bottles of nice, rich reds from the lands around the river Greenblood in southeastern Dorne. Her lord father had been partial to them, a moon and a year or else a lifetime ago. With her guards so close, Sansa could loudly hear their breathing. She was up against the hard muscle of tall, strong Harrold, whose body hid hers from view. In another time she would have felt embarrassed. Now that worry seemed light as a feather.

The clangs and shouts and screams of battle drew nearer. Renly Baratheon's men were close. Sansa had no need of expertise on military matters to know how the battle must be going. There were also closer and shouts and clatters from above. It seemed Willem had been right that the cityfolk would try to rob the house. Then she heard a female shriek, no, more than one, and male grunts.

"My maids—" she cried with a gasp of dismay, trying to push past Harrold.

"Shut up, bitch," Harrold hissed, slapping a hand over her mouth. She would have fallen from the force of the blow if his other arm had not sprung to hold her. "You want to call 'em 'ere? You want that to be you?"

"Now that ain't no way you speak to the lady," Willem told him, but his voice was similarly soft, and he did not disagree with Harrold's message.

"Sorry."

It went on, agonisingly long even to listen to. Sansa thought herself undiscovered till mayhaps minutes later, when footsteps drew up to the cellar.

Somebody opened the door. "Now what's all this you were sayin' about—" began the man, revealed as a wispy-moustached southerner of more than her lord father's age, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the lowness of the light. Patrek stopped his mouth with a sword. But the moustached man's dying gurgle alerted others, who came running downstairs, and these southerners were not caught by surrpise as their comrade had been. The westermen fought them. Patrek slew two more rushing down to fight him ere the second put a sword into his belly. Jonothor fell next, a fearsome blow severing much of his scalp along with his pretty golden hair. After that they rushed into the wine-cellar and were no longer fighting one man in the doorway at once. Harrold fell next, with a crash, his dead weight bearing her down, his bowels unclenching, shitting his breeches, and bleeding all over her.

Sansa could not stand the needlessness of it. "Stop it! Enough!" she commanded them.

Willem glanced at her. She would never know why he had done it. Reflex alone, perhaps. A southern soldier bleeding from his arm took up a sword and shoved it through the old man's belly.

"M'… m'la…" he gurgled at her, ere his head fell with a thud and the light left his eyes.

"Ser," Sansa whispered, trembling. _He was an enemy_ , she told herself fiercely, _I hate him, I hated him, I must not weep, I must not cry._

She did not cry.

Sansa drew herself up, bloody and filthy though she was, and put on her haughtiest, coolest and most imperious voice, the voice of the girl she had been ere the Lannisters put her here, ere they stripped her naked before the court, ere they slew her father. "My name is Sansa of House Stark, lately captive, and I have prayed for your triumph, sers. Pray take me to His Grace the King."

They did not take her at once to Renly. The lead southerner took one look at her, hearing the manner of her words, and hollered immediately for reinforcements. Soon she was surrounded once again by soldiers, this time ones she did not know.

She spent tonight in the same bed as last, watching the tide of steel and black-and-golden banners flow across the city. The next morning she was bathed and tended by her serving girls. They were taut and silent. Sansa was silent too. They were not well-practised, nor of gentle birth, but in her time here they had served her sufficiently finely. She knew naught of what she could or ought to say to them. She supposed that she would never face them again in her life, and in a petty shameful way a part of her was glad of it.

Her old clothes had been stolen from the manse during the chaos of the battle, so she remained long in her bedchamber, till someone hastily acquired a dress from nearby in the city. The dress had clearly been designed for a girl of somewhat greater girth than her, and on her it looked strange and drooping, as well as its rather faded colours, but it would serve. She felt no inclination to be picky, not with her maidservants, not today.

They took her out of her manse for the final time in the mid-morning of that day. The city stank, but no more than it always did, indeed less; the blood and gore and corpses had been cleansed from the streets, which sparkled cleaner than she ever remembered them being. No-one paid heed to her, nor did any look askance at her dress. All men, and women and children too, from richly clad lords and merchants to the meanest and raggedest of beggars, were looking intently at the King's Gate, the southernmost point of the capital.

The gate opened, and as the bells of the Great Sept of Baelor struck noon, Renly of the House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, rode into the city.

The new king cut a figure of the utmost splendour. Atop a great white stallion, a magnificent steed, the king was high and broad, with eyes like segments of today's clear, sunlit, noon-time sky and flowing shoulder-length hair that was black as midnight. Under a black-and-golden cloak so vast it covered his horse's hindquarters, he wore his shining mail, and near to his scabbard he held the helm with the golden antlers in the crook of his arm at his side. Here was no fat and drunken oaf like old King Robert, nor a cruel and pouting little boy like Joffrey. Renly was _king_ , and it showed in his every part. He was everything she had imagined a king should be: tall and young, strong and proud, warlike and avenging.

Fair young Margaery Baratheon rode to her handsome husband's right, mounted on a likewise white-coated mare, and to the king and queen's every side rode his Rainbow Guard, seven helmed and armoured men in cloaks that dazzled her with colour: red and orange, yellow and green, blue and purple, and the black stag on gold of Baratheon for one who she presumed was their Lord Commander. The blue Rainbow Guard knight was the man who bore the royal standard. Behind Renly's mighty knights and boon companions she would have expected the highest and most esteemed of his lords bannermen, but they did not ride there, so close to their liege. Instead, the king rode into his capital city followed by a train of wagons, staffed by men and women wearing the stag and rose sigils of Houses Baratheon and Tyrell. "Food in the name of the king!" and "Food in the name of the queen!" they cried, moving out in all directions, kept in good order by the southern men-at-arms who lined each side of the road, giving their king an avenue within it. The road that Renly had chosen to follow on the way to his newly won castle was not King's Way, the greatest road in the city, and traditional for such occasions. It was River Row, which never strayed far from the city's southeastern wall, and went through Fishmonger's Square which bordered the River Gate. Folk from all across the city and beyond were present in great numbers, but none more so than the fisherfolk. The cityfolk cheered the king that they had made in spectacular numbers, cheers of such sort as she had never seen, nor dreamt of, for the Lannisters and for Joffrey, nor even for King Robert. They covered the king and queen with thrown flowers. King Renly smiled and raised his left hand to wave at them, as the right still held his helm, and applause redoubled. Sansa almost felt faint at the sound. It was plain to see King's Landing loved the victor, or at least hated the vanquished enough to love anyone who could expel them.

At last, after many wagons filled to bursting with the bounty of the south, sent from where they had been stored in the northern stormlands, were settled at the sides of River Row to feed the eager people, Renly's train of lords and ladies and great knights rode after him into the city, escorted by a forest of guards and servants and standard-bearers.

The gates of the Red Keep, over which the black stag on gold flew, opened at once before the king, ere their liege even spoke a word to command them. Sansa's assigned guards took her to join the men and women following the king, near the back of the queue. When she came in she saw that the king had stopped at the foot of the Iron Throne, and a squire was removing his armour. Beneath it he wore a fine doublet and breeches in the colours of his House, black and gold, but also green, perhaps in Queen Margaery's honour. The gallery of the court filled, and not only with the highborn. To her surprise, Sansa saw countless dirty ragged cityfolk escorted by the king's men-at-arms into the vast sprawl of the throne room, and many more watching from outside.

Two knights of his Rainbow Guard helped the king off his horse, and with a jolt Sansa noticed the king flinch with pain as the big blue knight grasped him. _He is wounded_ , she realised. But he displayed very little weakness, however much pain he might have felt. Wearing the crown she had heard he had received at Highgarden, King Renly strode up the steps of his prize, favouring his left side, and sat down among the barbs and blades of the Iron Throne as if he had done so a thousand times, as if he belonged there.

The king smiled.

"Friends," he said in a clear, warm voice, like a big cat's purr, "be seated at my court."

Sansa sat in a rustle of skirts.

"King's Landing is ours," King Renly went on, sparking another round of cheering. He put it to an end simply by lifting his hand, without some haughty barked command with which she imagined Joffrey would have done it. "The crowned and anointed king sits on the Iron Throne, and you may rest assured that he will not forget those by whose chivalry and valour the capital was won."

"Greatest of them all yourself, Your Grace, conqueror of the city!" called a knight from somewhere in the gallery.

"You are too kind, Ser Harys," said King Renly, flashing another perfect smile. "Now it is time that such men be remembered. My leal Lord of Goldengrove, Mathis of House Rowan."

There was a great blast of trumpets as a stout, clean-shaven man in a white doublet strode into the room and knelt before the Iron Throne. "I am yours, Your Grace," he declared.

"My lord of Rowan, none dispute your valour and the example you set to your men. You have held the centre of my hosts outside my own seat, when I put paid to the ambitions of my brother Stannis, who sought to defy King Robert's decree out of greed for a castle that was never his by right, and in the Battle of King's Landing, fighting long and hard against the rebels in this very city. All the while, your elder son has remained to fulfil your title and defend the northmarch of the Reach against any threat emanating from the westerlands. All of this and more your king remembers, and your House will be rewarded, in land and not only in promises, at the traitors' expense when the war is done."

The first to be called, Sansa thought Lord Rowan might also be the happiest, not by coincidence. Certainly his king's praise pleased him greatly. "I thank you, Your Grace," he said.

"Be seated in this place of honour."

Lord Rowan took his place, separated from the king only by the queen and the Rainbow Guard, very near to Renly's side.

"My leal Lord of Horn Hill, Randyll of House Tarly."

With another blast, a thin, grey-bearded man with a sword in a jewelled scabbard strode into the room. He too knelt before King Renly. "What is mine is yours, Your Grace."

"My lord of Tarly, you have long provided me with sound counsel in my battle plans, for this battle and others before it. Your prowess as a leader of men has been beyond price. And you pinned down Ser Kevan Lannister, the leader of the foe, at the most hotly disputed part of the Battle of King's Landing long enough for me to make my breakthrough at the River Gate, and had the fortitude to endure and keep the pressure upon him, at hard and bitter cost, lest the full power of House Lannister fall upon my reserve and destroy us, when a lesser man might have sighed in relief and considered his task to be done. All of this and more your king remembers, and your House will be likewise rewarded when the war is done."

For such royal recognition and extravagant praise, Lord Tarly's face was split by a huge smile. "I thank you, Your Grace."

With a sweep of his hand Renly indicated a chair for him, on his opposite side from Lord Rowan's. "Be seated in this place of honour."

Lord Tarly too took his place.

"My leal Lord of the Marches, Bryce of House Caron."

This time there was no blast of trumpets. No man entered the throne room. Some of the smallfolk looked around in confusion.

"My lord of Caron served in my Rainbow Guard and he fought well for me in the Clash of the Stags, breaking onto the high ground for the first time against Lord Stannis's host. He also fought well in the Battle of the Blackwater, rallying my leal men against foes that none of us dared imagine, and he proved too mighty to be felled, save only by the vilest of treachery. He cannot be with us on this day, but he watches us from above, for I his king perceived the highest of worth in him and I have no doubt that the Father Above judged him accordingly. We shall remember him."

The mood of the court was solemn. "We shall remember him."

Next to be called before the new king was Lester Morrigen, Lord of Crow's Nest, a short scar-faced man with hair as dark as Renly's. He was rewarded for his role as one of the king's lords commander in the Battle of King's Landing. Then came Ser Parmen Crane the Lord Commander of the Rainbow Guard, Lord Selwyn the Evenstar of Tarth, Ser Garlan the Gallant of House Tyrell, and Ser Donnel Swann the heir to Stonehelm. After them came the great southern lords of Houses Staedmon, Willum and Cuy. In the fullness of time all of the Rainbow Guard were named by their king, including Ser Alyn Estermont, the king's cousin and the newest sworn brother of that order, named less than a moon past to the orange cloak. So were many other knights and lords of the Reach and the stormlands.

However, it was not only lords and knights of high birth who were honoured today by the king. King Renly's heralds told the deeds of dozens, no, hundreds of men of valour. It was if heroes were everywhere. Here, a freerider, not even a hedge knight, who had climbed up a wall by clinging to the grooves between the rocks after his ladder had fallen. There, a band of squires who had saved a sept from looters deserted from some army. There, a lowborn man-at-arms who had stood over his landed knight's body and kept defending him in spite of being showered with heated oil. Many of the men whom the king chose to commemorate were dead, some in the Battle of King's Landing or various minor skirmishes but far more in the Battle of the Blackwater, which on occasion lent the proceedings a darker air, but most were still alive, and stepped with shaking shoulders and wide smiles into their places in the sunlight that was the high regard of court and king. Of these, many were given gifts such as knighthood, small keeps, gold, horses, arms and mail, rather than the promise of great lands for dynastic position. But of all who were summoned before King Renly, very few seemed at all disappointed or upset. Most were openly in delight.

Hundreds of new knights were made on that day. They had held their vigil in the Great Sept of Baelor all through the night, an exhausting feat after a great battle, and crossed the city barefoot that morning to prove their humble hearts. Now they came forward dressed in shifts of undyed wool to receive their knighthoods. Most were dubbed by the seven sworn brothers of the Rainbow Guard, but some were granted the even higher honour of being knighted by the king. Once anointed in seven oils and sworn the oaths of knighthood and of loyalty to King Renly, each new-made knight rose, buckled on his sword-belt, and stood beneath the windows. Some had bloody feet from their walk through the city, but they stood tall and proud all the same, it seemed to Sansa.

By the time all the knights had been given their _ser_ s, it was late in the evening and the throne room was somewhat sparser, especially from smallfolk, who did not know it was discourteous to depart from the king's presence without his leave. All the highborn guests remained.

After he welcomed the last new knight into that honour, the king spoke, more gravely than before. "It pleases me greatly to honour those who chose the side of right, but not all in this city belong to that number. A bastard born of cuckoldry and incest, a monster, an abomination in the eyes of the gods, sat upon my throne until yesterday, and he could not have achieved such a feat unaided and alone. Some of his followers remain. The true king needs must sit in their judgement."

Whispers swept the court.

"Guards," said the king, "bring in Alester of House Florent, Lord of Brightwater."

Mailed men-at-arms, badged with the stag sigil of Baratheon, dragged in a tall, thin old man with silver hair and threw him harshly before the Iron Throne, at the feet of the king. His nose was aquiline, his face noble, but he was clad only in a grey shift as might have been worn by a beggar.

"Well, Lord Florent, your treason on the Blackwater has been observed by numerous witnesses, not least of them myself, in person. At last count, I believe there are at least fifty-two-thousand, seven-hundred and sixty-one able-bodied men who can testify." A chuckle ran through the court. Renly asked him: "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Mercy, Your Grace," said Lord Alester, "for I was led astray."

Sansa wondered at that choice. _He betrayed them all. Surely none of them will believe him. What purpose does it serve for him to disavow Joffrey and die a traitor twice over and a coward too instead of a traitor only once?_

"You strayed, for certain," agreed the king, humouring him, "though I am unconvinced you were led in that."

"I was deceived by the Imp," the old lord declared with aplomb, "and by my traitor of a brother, Axell, who fled with him to Dragonstone. I was led to believe the foulest slander about your and House Tyrell's intentions for my House. Disgrace, dispossession…"

"You were? And yet you and your men were amongst my host, my lord. You stood high in my councils." Sansa had not noticed it arriving—it was too subtle, not arriving in an instant—but a new edge had crept into King Renly's voice, not charming but hard and cold. "Should you have heard any slander, you could easily have come to me. Who is it that you believed to know your king's mind better than himself?"

"'Tis not that!" Lord Alester was at least clever enough to avoid that misstep. Then, straight afterwards, he made a different one: "Your Grace was watched, always watched! We could not speak, Loras Tyrell, Garlan Tyrell, a Tyrell, they were always near you—"

The king's voice became frost. "You will _not_ speak ill of Ser Loras Tyrell in my presence. He served me as Lord Commander of my Rainbow Guard, he fought for me, and he died for me, which is more by far than you can say."

"Not Ser Loras, Your Grace," Lord Florent attempted, "doubtless he was loyal, but his father, his brothers, plotting against you, plotting against your leal vassals, he wants your crown for himself—"

"He does?" King Renly's voice softened, turned musing. "How strange. My lord, I do seem to recall there was indeed a certain… reaching above one's station."

Lord Alester grasped onto this like a drowning man given a rope. "Yes, Your Grace, absolutely! Your Grace is wise! For three-hundred years the Tyrells have reached—"

"…but not by Mace Tyrell," Renly cut him off, sharp as a sword-thrust. "What is your title?"

Lord Alester's face turned white. "Lord of Brightwater, Your Grace," he said.

"Is that all, truly?"

"Yes, Your Grace."

" _Truly_? Let me refresh my lord's memory. Lord of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Mander, High Marshal of the Reach, Defender of the Marches, Warden of the South… do any of these sound familiar, my lord?"

"Lannister work," Lord Alester rasped, "all Lannisters, Your Grace. They meant for me to overthrow Lord Tyrell, so that I might be further entangled in their fiendish plots, to make me seem ambitious so that I could never return to your side once you learnt the truth of it."

"So you never meant to be Lord of Highgarden?" The apparent courtesy to this man who had betrayed him left King Renly's voice; he was open now in his disbelief and in his contempt. "'Twas all the work of the Lannisters? You would not otherwise have claimed Highgarden, but the Lannisters forced that claim to power against the Tyrells, who even now you profess to be your foes, on your poor miserable leal self?" Another titter ran through the court. "'Tis not a claim your House has sought ever since the Hightowers, once mightiest of the seekers, failed in their bid to claim the Reach and were humbled by my royal ancestor in the Dance of the Dragons?"

"All Lannisters, Your Grace."

The noble lords and knights and ladies of the court were jeering openly.

" _Spare me_ ," said Renly with vitriol, and the court burst into applause. He halted it with a gesture. "I need hear no more of this. I, Renly of the House Baratheon, the First of My Name, crowned and anointed King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, do on this day decree that House Florent stands attainted for high treason; that all men of that House are stripped of whatsoever lands, honours and titles that they may possess or claim to possess; that any oath of fealty, loyalty or service of any form sworn to any man of that House is hereby rendered null and void, and to be broken with no dishonour; that all men of that House and its vassal Houses who participated in the aforesaid treason in the Battle of the Blackwater are hereby sentenced to death; and that the remainder of Florents be faced with the choice of the Night's Watch or the silent sisters or death. This is my will."

The court banged their hands on the wood. " _The king's will_!" cried some, and others " _Death to traitors_!"

"You don't understand, Your Grace," Lord Alester wailed as the guards dragged him out of the oaken doors. "'Twas all Lannister work, all Lannisters!"

Sansa felt no pity for the old lord, no matter his physical frailty. _He's a traitor in truth, unlike my lord father, and he delivered the Lannisters their victory on the Blackwater. He would see my brother dead and me in Joffrey's power if he could. Let him die._

"That leaves Brightwater unaccounted for," continued Renly, "but no longer. Such a mighty keep should be held by a lord leal to Lord Tyrell and to me. And who will be more leal to a man than his own gallant son or brother? Ser Garlan, come to me."

The man who knelt before the Iron Throne was a tall, broad, bearded man who otherwise looked exceedingly similar to his younger brother, the late Knight of Flowers. Ser Garlan Tyrell had fought well for the king in the Clash of the Stags and the Battle of King's Landing; Renly had already mentioned he was due for a reward. It seemed that his was to come immediately.

"I need a leal Lord of Brightwater, and I judge you suited to the task. Will you serve?"

"With a glad heart, Your Grace."

Sansa wondered at that, for it was a common phrase and yet pain flashed like lightning over Renly's face. It was over in an instant. She almost thought she must have imagined it and seen nothing at all.

Once the new Lord of Brightwater had sworn his vows in place of the old, King Renly said, "Let us soon be cleansed of the filth of this task, to move to better, brighter things than the treachery in the hearts of men. I'll heed my lord of Florent in one thing, if one thing only. Guards, bring in the Lannisters."

Two more figures in grey shifts were brought into the room. The first was a man wounded and bloodied, but clearly treated with care, and Sansa noticed the portly figure, blond hair, short beard and solemn bearing of Ser Kevan Lannister. The second was a woman Sansa scarcely recognised, for she was full of cuts and bruises, her hair was dirty and her shift was covered with blood and filth and torn in several places. She may have regretted the latter, for she found herself clutching at her body with her arms to preserve her modesty. But there was no mistaking those eyes. Startled, Sansa realised that the woman was Queen Cersei.

"Kinslayer!" she screeched as soon as she saw the king. "Traitor, usurper, shame upon your House—"

"Your House by law," the king observed mildly, as though they were discussing the weather, "though I doubt you ever considered yourself Baratheon. Certainly you never bore children as such."

"Vile lies!" the former queen answered him. "You repeat your brother's treason. But where is your brother Stannis, I wonder? Whatever have you done to him?"

"Shut up," snarled one of the guards, moving in. Cersei lashed out at him with broken nails. The guards forced her to her knees.

"Claws like a hellcat, this one, Your Grace. Flings her shit and bites, too," another guard remarked.

"I daresay so," said Renly, filling his voice with exaggerated trepidation. The court laughed. "Very well, goodsister. You are accused of cuckolding and murdering my kingly brother and committing incest, sins in the eyes of men and gods. The matter is a grave one. What have you to say in your defence?"

But Cersei did not answer. Mid-way through that phrase, her mouth had dropped open and she had started staring at King Renly, eyes drinking in his face as if it were water and she were dying of thirst.

"Nothing?"

That broke her from her contemplation. "Traitor, I name you! Liar and traitor! Sentence and be damned! You have no right to judge me! The younger brother comes after the children of the elder, and that is the only foundation of your lie, the only reason for it. You are no true king!"

The court roared with outrage, but King Renly's reaction was calmer. "Truth be told, I expected an outburst of that sort. Fear not. She has no power to do harm to anyone, nor again will she ever. Guards."

As the king's men grabbed her by the armpits and bore her away, Cersei struggled and spat at them, and she did not stop shouting. "You're a baseless slanderer! You would murder your brother's children as you murdered your brother! You are no true king!"

The king paid her as much heed as he might have paid an ant under his heel. Sansa marvelled at her former tormentor's powerlessness. As Cersei was dragged out to whatever cell she had been thrown in, the king spoke again.

"Ser Kevan of House Lannister," he said. "Household knight of your brother Tywin, Lord of Casterly Rock. This no men deny. Claimant Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, a title to which your claim is considerably more disputable."

"Lord Regent by the will of the king," said Kevan Lannister. He was calmer than his niece but no less defiant.

"I see. I don't suppose it would do any good to remind you of the truth that Joffrey is no king, that your niece deceived you and your lord brother into serving an abomination born of incest who has no right to the Iron Throne?"

"It would not, for that's no truth. A lie that you may even genuinely believe, it may be, but a lie nonetheless, an invention of scarcely disguised self-interest."

"And why do you think that?" asked King Renly. "The evidence is rather overwhelming. My late kingly brother had many children, my own ward Edric Storm among them. Not one of them looked at all like Joffrey. And that is not all. When we met, Lady Stark told me that her second son fell from the window of a tower at Winterfell, a boy who'd climbed that tower hundreds of times and never fell from it before, and afterwards a hired man was sent to cut his throat, foiled by the boy's direwolf… and curiously enough, on the day he fell, my brother and Lord Stark were hunting but the Kingslayer remained, as did the former queen. I wonder why he fell. I wonder what he might have seen."

The throne room hissed with whispers. Sansa felt like a leaf in a storm at the casual ease with which the king revealed this secret. _Bran fell because he was pushed_ , she thought, _and Cersei did it. Her or the Kingslayer, it makes no matter. They tried to murder him, long before father tried to depose Joff. And I trusted her._

 _Father Above. I_ trusted _her._ Sansa thought she might be sick. _She's scarce different from Joffrey._

"And Lord Arryn's death came too near to my brother's for me to think it coincidence," King Renly continued, "nor for Lord Stark or my other brother to draw such a convenient conclusion. Your niece overplayed her hand, Ser Kevan. Lord Arryn to catch a queerly sudden illness and die almost at once despite being previously healthy? My kingly brother to have his reactions so slowed he died fighting a boar, a _boar_ of all things, when he's hunted them so many times before? Mayhaps. I might have believed one of them. But both, and Lady Catelyn's testimony, and the fact that you and I both know Ned Stark was not of the breed of man who could ever truly be a traitor… No, ser. I think not."

"You have a silver tongue, my lord," Ser Kevan allowed grudgingly, "but that cannot give your words truth they lack. Joffrey was King Robert's son and you his brother, no matter those words. No man dared to deny it when Robert still lived to defend the honour of his queen and of his children. You are no king. You never found King Joffrey, nor Prince Tommen who is his heir, not you, and one day the Iron Throne will be reclaimed."

"Oh ser," the king said with a sigh. He turned his eyes to the gallery. "I see how it is now, my friends. Ser Kevan here cannot deny the truth of what he hears, so he prefers not to contest it. Rather he chooses not to face it at all. He would not fear my words so much if he did not perceive the truth in them."

"You lie," Kevan Lannister said, "and you are no—"

A guard kicked him. Ser Kevan tried to speak, but then he was kicked again, driving the wind from his chest. Several more kicks followed, and he collapsed onto the throne room's floor, breathing heavily.

"So be it," said the king, and his voice held a simple sadness that was somehow more terrible than wrath. "I confess I'd hoped that you, mayhaps your lord brother as well, would see the light and refuse to throw away your House for the fruit of your niece and nephew's treason. I see now that view was rose-tinted. You are committed to treason, ser, and though I wish it not, if that be your resolve then I must sentence you to death."

"Your Grace!"

There was a stir. Across the court, like a wave through the sea, the heads turned to the one who had spoken.

"My lady of Stark," said the king, and though all the eyes in the room were upon her the only ones she felt were his, inquiring, cool and still and blue. "You have my leave to speak, if you so desire."

"Thank you, Your Grace," said Sansa. There were still so many people looking at her, the great and the good of the realm, even the king. She felt she might wilt like a flower, the ground swallowing her words.

She did not let it.

"I prayed for the arrival of your host, Your Grace," Sansa told him truthfully. Though all the hall was silent, she addressed only the king, as if she could avoid the other pairs of eyes by unflinchingly meeting his. "I prayed for your victory often, in yesterday's battle and also in the Battle of the Blackwater. I count your presence here as proof the gods have answered my prayers."

"Fairly spoken, my lady," Queen Margaery said, accepting the compliment with grace, but Sansa heard the voiceless addition: _But why do you choose to say it now?_

She gathered her courage as best she could. "Joffrey is a beast, Your Grace, more an abomination than even you may yet know or believe. When he had me beaten and stripped before his court—"

The whispers spread through the court swift as wildfire, the suddenness and loudness hurting her ears. Her pride was hurt more deeply. They were _looking_ at her now, not merely looking—pitying her and thinking her weak and vulnerable, a silly helpless maid who needed strong men, knights, to save her.

 _There are no true knights, or at least none that will ever come for me._ She carried on without a pause, a strong voice speaking high over them. "—for his amusement, most of his knights and his lords and ladies turned a blind eye, but there were some who tried to stop him. Ser Kevan took me away from Joffrey, him and Sandor Clegane and Ser Dontos Hollard and Maester Frenken and the Imp. They had me tended and borne to a manse away from the Red Keep. I was still a hostage, but that is a kindness I remember, and I would return it if I can. He's not a bad man, none of those I have named for you are. The king he served was evil, but he is no Joffrey; he does not deserve to die."

Those sky-blue eyes were still fixed upon her, filled with something indecipherable.

She felt timid all of a sudden, remembering courtesies. "…Your Grace. If you please."

"If it please me," King Renly said, his voice soft. "Does it please you? I wonder. Lady Sansa, you have been through much at the hands of the abomination, more than I wish to believe, and it would please me for you to consider, with great care, what you mean to do. Neither I nor any lord nor knight nor lady here will fault you if this is not your chosen course. Do you truly mean to plead for the life of Kevan Lannister?"

Her eyes met his. All the court looked upon her now, but in the throne room it was as if there were only two: the conquering king clad in his magnificent black and green and gold and Sansa in the old, ill-fitting, faded dress that somebody had found for her.

She told him, "Yes."

King Renly sighed. "I know not whether to regard you with horror or admiration, my lady. You must know this is a mercy that House Lannister would never dream of granting if they stood in the stead of you. Nevertheless… your wish is granted."

Sansa did not know what to feel. There was relief, mixed with disgust at herself for saving an enemy. She had long been her lady mother's daughter, and afterwards the king's betrothed and a presence at court, always beautiful and magnificent. Yet now, ugly, beaten, sleep-deprived, clad in a dress that did not fit her, she had never felt more powerful.

The king had turned back to the Lannister and was speaking to him harshly. "You must not imagine that this constitutes leniency. You will never again command hosts against your rightful king. Your life will not be taken, but it is forfeit nonetheless. You will take the black, serving the Night's Watch." He looked back up again, and his blue eyes blazed with condemnation. "And you will thank her for your life, ser. You knew what Joffrey was. At very least, you knew enough not to trust him with power over a girl. I cannot imagine, truly cannot even _imagine_ , how you could possibly have seen fit to trust him with power over the Seven Kingdoms."

Kevan did not deign to answer that, or perhaps he had no answer. Regardless, he was staring up at Sansa as if he had never seen her before. "I thank you for my life, my lady."

She did not reply, for she knew not how. She did not even nod at him as the guards bundled him out of the throne room and out of her sight, though she was confident she would never see him again.

"The Imp will get the same offer," Renly Baratheon told her, "loath though I am to grant it to the man who planned that foul trick with wildfire. There is one more thing that I must ask of you, my lady. You spoke of Tyrion and Kevan Lannister. How did Cersei Lannister react to her bastard's mistreatment?"

"The queen?" _She tried to kill Bran, and I trusted her._ "She turned a blind eye."

"I see," said King Renly, as the throne room of the Red Keep hissed soft susurration.

 _I have killed her_ , Sansa thought, quite certain of it, and torn between thrill and dread and wonder. _I purposely killed Queen Cersei with five words, and they were not even a lie._

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This update is mostly self-explanatory, but there's one thing I should add. Renly got wounded, yes, because he's no great shakes and, although he was all the while well-guarded by some very capable men, he _did_ lead a charge through a hail of arrows and scorpions and fight at the head of his men as they penetrated the River Gate and took the city. That isn't as stupid as it sounds. He didn't really have a choice. He'd stayed back in the reserve for the previous part of the Battle of King's Landing, and he hadn't fought at all in the Battle of the Blackwater, and he's an able-bodied man as well as a king. This was the moment which turned the tide, and he was perfectly placed to seize it. His men wouldn't respect him if he failed to seize that moment and delegated it to somebody else. This is a society where the image of a martial elite is still socially powerful, and therefore Renly has to play to it. It's already risky, in that sense, to stay away from the thick of the fighting and command from the reserve, though obviously there are also risks of a different sort in leading charges and suchlike. But staying in the reserve, seeing a decisive opportunity which could win the battle and then avoiding it anyway is too harmful to the image Renly is projecting of the ideal virtuous warrior-king for him to be able to get away with it. There's a line between being perceived as prudent and being perceived as cowardly, and an able-bodied nobleman who wants to be respected dare not cross it.


	25. Chapter 25

**ARYA**

The vaults beneath Kingspyre Tower were silent. Arya held herself in the alcove, quite still. The man below her was muttering and cursing, wandering below her by the light of a solitary candle. He went back and forth until at last he plucked a bottle of wine from among the many of them here. His task done, he took his prize and strode out, up and away. When his eyes had fallen upon her they had moved past without seeing. Too much light blinded one as to what lay in the darkness.

Arya allowed herself a small breath. That was all. With sure light feet she climbed down from the alcove, feeling for handholds and footholds without seeing them. After that she pressed her hands, not to the stores of grain and wine but to the stacks holding them and to the floor, for those were always the same. Once she had found out where she was, she made her way through the vault. The rough feel of the wood and stone and her memory were her only guides, for she had no candle—she dare not ask for one—and it was as black as a moonless midnight.

She knew much of the way, but there came a time when she knew no more, and she had to remember the grain and cut of the wood and stone as she passed. Wine gave way to grain and malt and flour and oats and eggs, and then to wood, and then to nothing. Arya trod barefoot and lightly over an equally bare floor.

The vault came to a close as its tower did, but Arya did not stop her search. She followed the edge of the chamber, touching and sniffing and grasping, pressing herself against it, till at last she found a handle. She turned it, flinching at the loudness of the creak, and slipped inside. She took great care to wedge a sack of flour in the door. She dare not let it close. If she did, it might not reopen.

The place in which she found herself was no less dark than the vaults of Kingspyre but far less cavernous. When she reached up and around and made a tiny noise, she realised that it was a corridor, and its ceiling lay not too many feet above her head height. She felt her way out, rubbing and grasping at the walls lest there be any choice that she might notice on her return journey. A single mistake and she could easily be lost forever, but Arya was unafraid. This was like how she had explored the Red Keep in King's Landing, only much darker and much bigger.

Arya heard noise and followed it, though not hastily. She had to know the feel of this place. There were a few turnings on the sides, but she ignored them, and in time she came to a door not wholly unlike the first one. She wedged it open with another stolen sack of flour and was stunned by the wail of sound. It was probably not very loud in truth, but she had become accustomed to the utmost silence.

She had found herself in another great chamber, high-ceilinged as the vaults of Kingspyre and fairly alike in nature, save that it was empty of men's possessions and full of animals. The chatter of rats was overwhelming, and she could feel the cobwebs with her toes.

Warily, Arya moved away, keeping to the walls. She had no liking for this place, but knew the use of its emptiness. Harrenhal was so much emptier now than it had been ere Lord Lefford and his bannermen took their leave of Ser Amory. They had brought life once more to the castle, albeit less than there had been when their liegelord, Lord Tywin Lannister, had dwelt here. Now Kingspyre Tower alone was lived in, it and some of the surrounding structures, such as the nearest sept. The rest of Harren's Folly was home only to spiders and bats and rats and mice. Arya thought that a pity. They the servants had gone to such great effort to drive out the vermin, only for them to come again as soon as a back was turned.

Most of the unused buildings were sealed and watched by Ser Amory's guards, in case any of the servant-folk stolen from the surrounding lands should think to hide from their duties therein. But Arya had been right to wonder whether Ser Amory had troubled to post guards beneath the castle, blocking off the corridors that connected the vaults beneath Kingspyre to those beneath the other towers. He only had a few hundred men-at-arms, after all. She knew Harrenhal now, or at least enough of it, to know that she must be walking under the Tower of Ghosts. She had not even known whether there _were_ such corridors, but she had guessed well. There were, and they had not been locked in the course of Lord Tywin's hasty parting as the Lord of Casterly Rock marched to fight the northmen.

That thought came with a stab of regret. Arya had not yet forgiven herself or Ser Amory or Jaqen H'ghar or Lord Lefford for her failure to save the northmen. It weighed down upon her mind. It had occurred to her to use surprise to kill a guard, and to name and have Jaqen kill another, in the right place and time to free the northern captives and take back Harrenhal in the night, when Lord Lefford's own men-at-arms might slumber. That was not how the matter had turned out. Her own effort to find the prison guards' times and names had moved too slowly, and the men of the Golden Tooth too fast. Now they were gone, to King's Landing where Joffrey held power, he and his great-uncle, the Lord Regent, Lord Tywin's brother, with thousands of Lannister men. They could never escape thence. Arya had never known any of the northern prisoners, nor their names, nor even the name and House of their lord commander, but she mourned them nonetheless. They were father's people, Robb's now, she supposed, serving House Stark and of the north, and they too were held captive in the south where they should not be. The other six of the Seven Kingdoms were no place for northmen. Father should never have left Winterfell to be Hand of the King.

She mourned, also, for the loss of what she could have done by helping them. That had sustained her even when Gendry had refused to help her and Hot Pie had started hating her because of what had happened to his friend. If she freed her father's people and taken Harrenhal with them, she had believed, she would not have to hide any more. They could flee and take her to Robb and to her mother, and she would speak to them, and they would defeat the Lannisters and leave the south behind them and go home.

After an hour or so, she turned away and felt her way back to the entrance, picking up the flour as she left. Arya had not found the way back up to the ground, but she was tired, and she had done enough tonight.

She was still tired for all of the next day, though she dare not slack too long from the tasks that Pinkeye gave her, so she had to sleep for all of the following night. She slept the next night too, and the one after it, but the night after that she returned to the vaults, this time more surely and swiftly. Thus it went on, till at last, one night, she emerged not only from the vaults but from the Tower of Ghosts and thence she wandered, silent, lightfoot, through Harrenhal, and she found a way to her best attempt so far: an almost deserted postern gate, scarcely a gate at all in truth, a tough and narrow oaken door well-placed beneath a small defensive tower, with only one man standing guard. By the light of the moon, which made it far less perfectly dark than the vaults underneath, she caught a glimpse of his fair, stubbly young face. Doubtless there were sentries on the walls above, but this was better than anything else she had seen, and it was needed were she to win her freedom.

On the morrow Arya did naught but her duties, thwarted by exhaustion. The day after, she tried her hopes at finding Jaqen H'ghar's third name. She thought of requesting some ale from the brewhouse so that she could justify her presence, but she dare not. She did not plan to escape that very day, and when Pinkeye noticed the lie he would put her to the lash in punishment for stealing the ale to drink it. So after she was given a duty, to bring some clothes to their owners from the washerwomen, she ran swift as she could in order to accomplish it and then when it was done she did not return to Pinkeye in Kingspyre. She came to the vaults, moving quite openly—for they were used in daytime—and, taking care not to be seen, she hurried to where she believed to be the gate.

By that time it was dusk, so Arya hoped the men-at-arms who stood guard in the night would now have woken and be meeting to eat and drink before their duties. Though it took long, just as she hoped she found a small alehouse amidst the deserted buildings of the castle. Trying not to be seen—for she was not meant to be outside Kingspyre—she kept close to the shadows and tried to look in, with her eyes occasionally darting high enough to look into the window.

The young westerman who guarded her chosen postern gate at night-time was there, sure enough. She recognised him with a spurt of elation. But it was not him who was currently speaking.

"—ugly stuff," another man-at-arms was saying. "'Tis foul the Imp used it, even a dwarf, he's of Lord Tywin's blood, y'know. But it did its duty well enough."

"How well?" came another voice, still not coming from the man that she was listening to find a name for. "How many lived, how many died?"

"Fuck if I know, Gerold," said the first man with irritation. "You think I read Ser Kevan's letter to Lord Tywin meself? Just passin' on the gossip. But it was real bad, I'll tell you that. Lord Renly's reeling. Half his army's gone, some say, others a third or one in ten. Who knows? What the way, 'tis thousands, everyone knows that. Lord Renly's had to march away west, 'tis said, far so as 'e can cross the river with no royal fleet follows 'im as he does it."

Arya was glad no-one had chanced a look at the window, for she would have been seen for sure. It was as if there were a whirring noise in her ears but she could not move, could not stop listening. Lord Renly defeated? The Lannisters triumphant?

"Fool of a traitor," a third voice laughed. Arya realised this was the fair-haired young man at her chosen gate. She had expected to be pleased. Instead, she had almost failed to notice. "He ought knew that's what you get when you murders your own brother. Cursed by the gods, like any kinslayer. Course Lady Selyse sought revenge on Lord Renly, what with how he killed Lord Stannis. Someone kills my wife, I'm killin' him."

 _Lady Selyse? But she was the one trying to get my aunt to fight the Lannisters, she's on our side, she was our friend, it's all a lie, or a jape it may be…_

"You don't 'ave a wife, Jon," said a fourth voice, and the others laughed. _Jon_ , Arya thought, _I must remember that name_ , and it was a wonder that she had to remind herself of that. _Does it matter now?_

"You knows what I sayin'," said Jon, over the chuckles. "So you sayin', the war is won?"

"Aye, or close enough," the first voice said, and Arya thought, unwillingly, _He doesn't sound like he is japing._ "Lord Renly'll batter hisself to pieces 'gainst King's Landing's walls. He couldn't take 'em before with all the power of the south, ere the victory on the Blackwater. How's 'e supposed to do it now, his army's mauled? That just leaves Lord Stark to finish off, then it's back to Hornvale for you and me."

"To Hornvale, hearth and home," Jon cried, and the others echoed him with sincere delight. She heard the clink of cups.

It broke the spell. Arya fled. _Lord Renly's reeling… his army's mauled… Lord Stark to finish off… Lady Selyse sought revenge… the war is won… the war is won…_

"No," she said aloud, "no, you're wrong, you're _wrong_ , you stupid, they can't win, they _can't_ ," and yet the voices kept repeating in spite of her. She put her fingers in her ears to block them out but could not stop the memory of the guardsmen's voices from echoing inside her head in silent mockery. _The war is won…_

She fled through the chambers under Harrenhal, forcing her to judge by feel and not by sight and thus to move more slowly. The sun had fully set when she reappeared in Kingspyre Tower and made her way to the niche with old straw where she slept.

A sudden pain took her, sharp as a nail. Arya staggered backward, clutching her face.

"You lazy slut!" Pinkeye was roaring at her, awake long beyond his usual time, his round face ruddy and his runny eyes alight with fury. "Fucking whore think you'll make mock of me, do you, girl? No-one makes mock of me, you hear me? No-one!"

He pulled up her shift, bared her bottom and struck it hard with the flat of his hand. Arya nearly wept with the pain. She had known that she would be punished for deserting her work, expected it, even, and judged it necessary, but with the horror of the news she had forgotten utterly.

"Not—mocking—" she gasped. "Tired—"

"I don't give no shit about you tired! You does your work like everyone else you get punished! You understand? Never do 't again!"

Pinkeye struck her again, and again, and again. She burst into tears. _I hate you, I hate you, I hate you._

When Pinkeye left her, her bottom was not red but black and blue with bruises and blood was streaming down her thighs. She tried to curl up in her niche, but having her bottom touch anything hurt horribly. In the end she had no choice but to sleep upside-down on cold stone, and her slumber was short and fitful.

There was no maester for a lazy serving maid. It hurt to sit down, but Arya had no choice but to keep going and to do all her duties, faster than ever, as Pinkeye kept an eagle eye upon her now.

It was near a fortnight later when she finally found time to go to the godswood. She liked the sharp smell of the pines and sentinels, the feel of grass and dirt between her toes, and the sound the wind made in the leaves. A slow little stream meandered through the wood, and there was one spot where it had eaten the ground away beneath a deadfall. There, beneath rotting wood and twisted splintered branches, she had hidden a broom whose bristles she had broken off, to make it something like a sword. Though it was much too light and had no proper grip, she liked to hold it and work at the drills Syrio had taught her, slashing at branches as if they were Ser Ilyn, or Ser Meryn, or the Hound, or the queen, or Joffrey. But none of those were why she was here.

"Girl."

"Jaqen," Arya said before turning around. She was not surprised to find the Lorathi here, because the first time they had met in the godswood _he_ had found _her_. He had wanted to hear a name, the third name. Arya had refused him.

That had given her the seed of an idea.

"Come with me," she told him, "and I will give you your third name."

"A girl took three from a god," said Jaqen H'ghar, in such a voice that he could have been explaining the rise and fall of the sun, as soft as it was implacable. "A girl has given one, two. The gods are not mocked. A girl must give three. No less, no more."

"I know. I'll give you three, I promise."

He followed her to the gate that she had chosen, as she had known he would. Jaqen H'ghar's mind might be incomprehensible in other respects but this about him she could understand. He owed her a debt, in some strange way after the manner of his kind, and he wanted that matter to be done.

Arya remembered her lord father's men-at-arms and Syrio, but she had never seen anyone move half as silently as Jaqen H'ghar. Twice she looked back as she had decided that he must have left her, and twice there he was, walking quite calmly, never more or less than four paces behind.

Once she drew near to the gate, Arya sat, then winced and wished that she had not. Pinkeye's blows had scabbed over but there was still some discomfort.

"A girl is hurt," Jaqen observed. Arya did not for a moment believe that he had only just noticed. "Who?"

"Pinkeye, or Mebble really," said Arya, "but he's not who I mean to name."

She could see the fair-haired guard at his post now, his face appearing out of shadow. The moon was in the right place now. Its pale light showed her his face clearly, but to him, she knew, she was almost invisible. It was hard to see something very dark when you could see something very bright.

Then she saw why he had moved. There was another man with him, much older. "Glad all's well," the middle-aged man said. With relief, Arya realised that their conversation seemed to be ending. "Have a nice quiet shift, and keep your eyes sharp!"

"Will do, sarge," said the young fair-haired man, and his leader strode away with long purposeful steps. Arya thought, _He's a servant._

The thought struck like a hammer-blow. It would be so _easy_. Name Jon of Hornvale and Jaqen would kill him, certain as an eastern sunrise; Arya had no doubt of that. He was a grown man with chainmail and a sword, she could do nothing, but the Lorathi would have no trouble. The fair-haired guard would be dead and she would flee to Riverrun and meet her lady mother. And yet… and yet…

Arya remembered the death of Weese. She had been so angry with him, for what seemed to be good cause, but on the very day of his death she had watched the army of Tywin of House Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Shield of Lannisport and Warden of the West, King Joffrey's Hand, lord of a line that had already been ancient when Brandon the Builder, ancestor of House Stark, built the Wall eight-thousand years ago, take their leave of Harrenhal, and on that day she had understood the depth of the error she had made. Weese mattered nothing, had _always_ mattered nothing, no matter how great an impact he might have on individual lives like hers. He was only a servant. There were countless others like him. When he died he had been replaced immediately. Pinkeye might be nicer to her and others than Weese had been, but they were few. Just like Chiswyck, Weese had died and most of the world had scarcely noticed.

Arya had been perilously close to repeating that same mistake. Jon of Hornvale was a servant too. If he died she would escape, but even Ser Amory here at Harrenhal, let alone House Lannister in the fullness of its strength, had hundreds of men like him.

The Lannisters were winning the war. Lord Renly had lost a great battle on the Blackwater; Storm's End and Highgarden were humbled. Lady Selyse had betrayed them; Dragonstone had turned to Joffrey's side. Lord Tywin had torn apart a northern host and was laying siege in order to devour the scraps. What did her escape mean, next to all of that? She recalled something that father liked to say: _When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives._ What would it be but an act of supreme selfishness to place the lone wolf's escape above the pack's survival?

 _Just three words—Jon of Hornvale—and I'll be free. I'll meet my grandfather and uncle who live at Riverrun, and I'll see mother and Robb and Bran and Rickon again._

That was what her escape meant.

Tears pricked at her eyes.

Arya said, in a strangled voice: "No."

"No to what?" said Jaqen.

"No matter," said Arya, though it did, it _did_. "I need to ask you. The name… can I name _anyone_? And you'll kill him?"

Jaqen H'ghar inclined his head. "A man has said."

" _Anyone_?" she repeated. "A man, a woman, a little baby? No matter who they are? No matter how far away they are? Even the king himself?"

"Speak the name, and death will come. On the morrow, at the turn of the moon, a year from this day, it will come. A man does not fly like a bird, but one foot moves and then another and one day a man is there, and a king dies."

Arya was thinking of the Battle of the Blackwater. Lord Renly had come with tens of thousands of men, she had heard, and he and Joffrey had contended over blood and water and green fire. He had failed. It seemed too good to be true, that such power could be held in her hands, that with naught but a name she could achieve what all the power of the south could not.

She said, "I don't believe you."

"A man will swear by any god a girl cares to name."

"Men swear things all the time. That doesn't mean they do them." Arya felt much like crying. She wondered whether she wanted Jaqen to be incapable of the deed she was demanding of him. _I want to name Jon of Hornvale. I want to go home._ "Joffrey was going to send father to my uncle Benjen at the Night's Watch, it was promised, then he cut off his head."

"There are wicked men," said Jaqen H'ghar. "A man is not wicked. A man swears."

"I still don't believe you."

"Evil child. A man has a girl's word, that a girl will give a name? Today? That the debt will be repaid?"

"I swear it. I'll give you your name."

"Then see."

Jaqen passed a hand down his face from forehead to chin, and where it went he _changed_. His cheeks grew fuller, his eyes closer; his nose hooked, a scar appeared on his right cheek where no scar had been before. And when he shook his head, his long straight hair, half red and half white, dissolved away to reveal a cap of tight black curls.

Arya's mouth hung open, torn between amazement and mistrust. "I… I think you aren't really a man from Lorath," she said. "Are you?"

Jaqen H'ghar inclined his head gravely. "This is so. I am a man of Braavos." Arya noted that he had said "I", not "a man".

She said, "I think your name isn't even Jaqen H'ghar."

"This is so."

"What _is_ your name?"

"Some men have many names. Weasel. Arry. _Arya_."

It did not surprise her that he knew. "What's your _true_ name, then?"

He said, "Jaqen H'ghar."

"But that's _not_ your true name! You told me just now!"

"I did tell," he said. "It is a name as true as any other."

"No it isn't," Arya said. "You know I'm Arya. That's my name, the others are just… like cloaks. Everyone has a true name, a name their mother gave them. What's yours?"

He did not even look like he was upset or trying to deceive her. That was the worst of it. "No one."

A chill came into Arya's heart. What the Braavosi man could do was miraculous, and she had no doubt, now, that he could do all that he claimed. She had thought to ask him whether she could do it too. But she no longer thought she wanted to. It was a path to admire, perhaps, but only from afar.

"I understand," she said, although she did not. She meant to bring the matter to a close. The Braavosi probably knew it, but he kept his silence.

Who, then, was she to name? She thought first of the men who had defeated Lord Renly in the Battle of the Blackwater. The men-at-arms had mentioned two leaders of that effort: Kevan and Tyrion Lannister. If they were slain, perhaps Lord Renly could defeat the Lannisters in the next battle near King's Landing. _But no. Kevan is Lord Tywin's brother, and commands a host of Lord Tywin's vassals given to him by Lord Tywin. Tyrion is Joffrey's uncle, and is Hand of the King where the king is Joffrey. They're servants, too._

Next she thought of Lady Selyse, who had betrayed her hopes and sided with the Lannisters. But it occurred to Arya that her act of treason was already done. If she were slain, the royal fleet would remain on the Lannister side. She had made her choice; her death would not reverse it.

Then she thought of the man she had watched leave Harrenhal about four moons ago. Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, head of the House that was House Stark's enemy. He had sent Gregor Clegane to despoil the riverlands. He had caused the marriage of Queen Cersei to King Robert that had given the Lannisters such power. He had sent both Kevan and Tyrion Lannister to King's Landing, to serve under his command. He had shattered the army of northmen that had served her brother. He was House Lannister's head, the enemy lord commander, the undefeated foe.

But ultimately… _he's just a lord, isn't he? To kings, lords are servants._ Joffrey was king… and it was Joffrey who had given the order to cut off her father's head.

There could be only one choice.


	26. Chapter 26

**SANSA**

 _Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop._

The sound was relentless. The air was damp as if the gods were sweating, yet also biting cold, and it stank like a cesspit. Beside Sansa, Ser Danwell Shermer of the Rainbow Guard walked with a visible grimace and with his right hand on the hilt of his sword. There was no light but the dancing glow of the torch she bore, and in such darkness even Ser Danwell's bright violet cloak could have passed for a plain brown thing.

The gaoler, a scraggly-cheeked young man, took them to one of the thick wooden doors. "This one," he said loudly, too loudly. His voice echoed. He looked out of place here. The old gaoler of the black cells had disappeared in the sack of the city four days ago, almost certainly slain, so he was almost as new to this as they were. The gaoler put a key into the lock and turned it.

The black cell was tiny, and it reeked so powerfully of the piss and shit that covered its floor that Sansa had to place a hand on her stomach and breathe in sharply in order not to retch. The woman inside was curled up on the floor. Lacking a chamberpot, she had shoved her shit into one corner, but there was nothing to be done about the piss, and from the wetness of her torn grey shift and of her tangled hair, it seemed she had been sleeping in it.

When the door opened the woman awoke, squinting, her red-rimmed eyes shying from the unaccustomed brightness of the torchlight. There was a snarl on her face. Sansa was unafraid. However angry she was, however smaller and slighter than her Sansa was, however vulnerable, Ser Danwell was not.

"Why are you here?" rasped the former queen of Westeros.

"I don't know," Sansa admitted. Perhaps she wanted to see what she had done when she had condemned this woman to execution. Perhaps not. "You aren't the queen any more."

"Well gathered," said Cersei Baratheon drily, "you are _such_ a clever girl. Even now, too full of courtesy, too afraid to breach it, too afraid to state candidly your wish for vengeance, so you must state the obvious instead… even your gloating is pathetic."

"I'm not gloating!" Sansa protested.

"No? Perhaps I am fooled. You shouldn't be, though, for the downfall of House Lannister is no boon to House Stark."

"Yes it is," said Sansa. "You lied before and you're lying now. Your House is my House's enemy and the king has defeated you, so I'll go home."

"If only the world were that simple," responded Cersei, sounding anything but wistful. "Your brother has crowned himself a _king_ , girl, and men who have worn crowns do not easily pass them away. As Lord of Winterfell he could choose his side freely, but as King in the North he has declared himself the enemy of every man who seeks to sit upon the Iron Throne and rule the Seven Kingdoms— _all seven_ kingdoms. You think House Lannister's fall serves your purpose? I think not. Casterly Rock has not the strength to win the war for the Iron Throne _and_ to subjugate the north, not since Jaime's host was broken by your brother, but Highgarden and Storm's End together _do_ have more than sufficient strength. King Renly could be a friend of Lord Robb, but King Robb is his enemy. He will never release you while your brother claims part of his realm."

"Yes he will," Sansa retorted. "King Renly is an honourable man, not like you Lannisters."

"An honourable man? You poor stupid child. Even now you fail to understand. How many do you think were killed in the sack of King's Landing?"

"Lannister men," said Sansa, "and Florents, the traitors, and gold cloaks. I hate all of them." She tried to put steel in her voice, the same calm certainty that infused King Renly's, yet she thought, unwillingly, of the Lannister men-at-arms who had guarded her, of stubbly Josua, of strong Harrold, of Petyr, of Philip, and especially of Willem. _Stupid girl_ , part of her mocked, sounding a great deal like Cersei, _do you believe that if you tell a comforting lie often enough you will deceive yourself into thinking it true?_

"Some," said Cersei, to Sansa's shock not challenging her on that final claim. "But most of the deaths in the sack were not men-at-arms. Untold thousands of men, women and children were murdered that night, and homes looted, rapine rampant—" When Sansa flinched at the last phrase, Cersei seized upon the display of weakness like a lion grabbing its prey by the neck. "Ah, you _do_ understand. Your serving maids, I imagine. What do you think happened to them? _You_ may have been safe from it, child, as highborn as you are, but many a man will turn raper for the night in the aftermath of a hard-fought victory, and many a maid will suffer it. Lord Renly's army is of men, not heavenly messengers, no less prone to it than other men. Lord Renly wars as other men war—" the queen twisted the knife— "and he holds hostages as other men hold hostages."

"Enough of this!" snapped Ser Danwell. The knight of the Rainbow Guard, raised high for his courage and his prowess in battle, put forward a great hand to grab at Cersei's ripped grey shift, tearing it more, and pulled her close, then shoved her fiercely backward. The queen cried out as she fell, hard, onto the wall of the black cell. "I will not have you denouncing His Grace the King to his guests." He turned to Sansa, whose eyes had grown wide. "Don't worry about this whore," he said kindly, "she lies as easily as you and I draw breath. Renly is the true king, and soon your brother will bend the knee and you will be reunited."

 _Your brother will bend the knee and you will be reunited._ Sansa felt hollow. Ser Danwell had as good as confirmed it. Renly would return her to her family only if they served him; elsewise she was a bargaining chip. _Cersei is right._

Sansa expected the queen to be infuriated with such handling, to shout and scream and rage in protest, but she seemed accustomed to it. She was silent. Her eyes spoke enough. They gazed at Sansa, bright with victory.

Sansa wanted to cry, though she did not allow herself that luxury here. "Why do you do this?" she asked the queen, pitiably. "You know what I said in the throne room. Do you hate me?"

"Hate _you_?" Cersei Baratheon laughed in a cracked barking voice. "You aren't responsible for my death, nor for any misfortune that has befallen my House. No usurper could slander me with infidelity to Robert to steal my son's crown and then let me live. Renly would never have spared me, no matter your words. No, I merely teach you of the nature of the world because someone must… and yes, because it amuses me. Hate _you_ , girl? You don't matter enough to be worth hating."

Sansa's anger flared at the sheer arrogance of that dismissal. "You betrayed my trust when you had my lord father arrested. You did nothing when Joff chose to cut off his head. You're going to die anyway, the king wants your head, so you might as well tell the truth; you have nothing to lose from it. Tell me: was that the first time you acted against my family? Or were you and the Kingslayer behind Bran's fall?"

"Your brother fell of his own accord," Cersei said calmly. "Such things do happen, you know. There is danger in climbing."

Sansa thought she caught a tremor in Cersei's voice. "Liar."

The queen gave her a glance full of contempt. "What does it matter, then, girl? Why ask me questions if you'll presume the answers are lies?"

"I…" Sansa did not know quite how she should respond to that.

"Then I'll ask questions," Cersei said briskly, as if they were speaking about the breeding of horses. "When will Renly take my life?"

"His Grace," said Ser Danwell hotly.

"On the morrow," said Sansa. Cersei nodded, in perfect serenity, as if this did not at all disturb her, and Sansa felt a sudden and unexpected surge of wrath. Cersei had betrayed her and hurt her. She _wanted_ Cersei to be disturbed, to be angry and screaming and shouting. This peaceful resignation left no satisfaction in her vengeance. "And when he finds your awful son," she added, "he'll kill him too."

True pain flashed on Cersei's dirty face; she flinched as if Sansa had struck her. _She_ is _a mother_ , Sansa thought, _heartless as she is in all things else._ "Yes, he will. I should have known it. I should have protected him. I should have known, I _could_ have known."

"What do you mean?"

"Prophecies," Cersei hissed. "Maggy the Frog, she told me, she _told_ me, only I didn't understand…"

"Maggy the Frog?"

"That old _bitch_ from Lannisport, she was, and she knew _everything_. Everything that ever mattered. 'Twas when I was only a girl. I thought that I would wed Prince Rhaegar, half the realm thought it, thought they knew it, even, but ere Aerys shocked them all when he denied my lord father's request, Maggy told me he would. I still recall it now. 'You will not wed the prince,' she said, 'you will wed the king.' I thought she meant I would marry Rhaegar only after he came to the crown, but she did not… I said, 'I shall be queen, though?' and she said aye, I would be, till another, younger and more beautiful, comes to cast me down. Gods curse me for a fool, girl." She pointed at Sansa. "I thought it might be _you_ —as if you could cast down a mouse—but of course it was Margaery Tyrell… I would have three children, Maggy the Frog foresaw that too, long before Robert ever thought that he might wed or bed me… 'They will all leave you before the end,' she said, 'and when your tears have drowned you, the _valonqar_ will take your head.' In that she was right too."

"What's a _valonqar_?"

"You don't know? Don't septas teach _any_ High Valyrian since the dragons died?" Cersei's nose turned up in disgust. "It means 'little brother', girl… I was so _blind_. For so long I thought it was my brother Tyrion, the Imp, who killed my lady mother on the birthing bed… I hated him thenceforth… but the gods played a cruel jape… Tyrion has gone away now, he's taken away my Joffrey, he's _protecting_ him, my son, my boy, though I was never much of a sister to him, not as I was to Jaime… and it _wasn't_ him, girl, it was Renly all along. Renly, Renly… Don't you see? 'Brother'. There's more than one way we use that word. Fate was taunting me… You were there. You saw it. You heard him. He even called me 'goodsister'…

"That old whore didn't mean my brother by blood, she meant my brother by marriage, my goodbrother… gods damn me a fool! I thought it was Tyrion, of _course_ it was Tyrion, who else could it be?… but I was blind. Even when Renly was raising his army, when the knights of all the south were flocking to his banner, when he was raising a host unmatched by any in the Seven Kingdoms, I still feared my blood brother, and not the true _valonqar_ … I shouldn't have dreaded a weak little girl like you, nor the mere twenty-thousand swords of House Stark and the north, I should have paid my heed and fear to Margaery Tyrell, to the vast armies of the Reach and the stormlands."

Ser Danwell seemed too stunned to intervene. As far as Sansa could recall, she had never seen a hint of self-doubt in the queen's Lannister green eyes, let alone such a display of naked self-hate.

"I tell you this, girl, and pay me heed if you have half the wits the Seven gave a goose. Ignore me at your peril. _Never_ trust sorcery. _Never_ trust any who practise it. It promises so much, it seems to offer hope, seems so enticing… I only wanted to know whether I'd really marry Rhaegar, I didn't want to be as disappointed as I was when Maester Hallis said mother would survive the birth… but it lies, it _lies_! I swear, my life would be a better one if I'd never listened to Maggy. Her words were true, but not as I could have known them, only now as I look back at them when it is far too late. I looked north for my doom when I should have looked south… the prophecy was fulfilled only because it misled me into fulfilling it. _Don't trust them_. Do you promise?"

Sansa, taken aback by the outburst, was silent.

"Promise me, girl." Cersei leant forward to shake Sansa with those filthy hands of hers; she only stopped when Ser Danwell unsheathed his sword. "'Tis for your own good. Promise me. Now tell me, _do you promise_?"

"Yes," Sansa said faintly, "I promise…"

"Good." Cersei leant back, satisfied, in whatever strange way she could be.

Sansa simply looked at her. Cersei was a poised, confident queen, the woman who had betrayed Sansa and arrested father, introducing Sansa to the harshness of the world because it amused her to kill dreams like a cat kills mice, and to breed hopelessness. She was the enemy, proud and defiant. Sansa did not know what to think of this strangely serene prisoner, resigned to death, twisted by prophecy, this bitter, half-mad woman who had hurt her so.

Mayhaps it did not matter. Sansa turned, taking the torchlight with her, and left Cersei Baratheon in the cold of the black cells.

The morning of the execution was raucous and loud. It seemed all the city were gathered together in King's Landing's central square, and beyond it, a crowd stretching along King's Way in both directions. Sansa, by right of birth, was granted a privileged seat, near to where the king would be. She was clad magnificently in grey and white, Stark colours, a gown so lovely that it could take breath away, and it would have been easy to feel at one with her surroundings, the valiant knights and noble lords and beauteous ladies King Renly had brought to the capital.

She did not. This was not her place, she knew that now.

Trumpets blew. A herald cried, "All hail the saviour of the city, His Grace Renly of the House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm!"

Ear-splitting cheers filled the air. In the distance, the front gates of the Red Keep opened, and Renly Baratheon rode down King's Way on his startlingly white stallion, beside his queen whose left hand he held with his right. The royal couple were surrounded only by seven colourfully cloaked knights. The Lannisters, Sansa thought, would not have dared to come among the cityfolk with so little protection, not since the first great riot that had begun after the ceremony for Princess Myrcella's voyage to Dorne. Somehow the applause grew even louder when Renly and Margaery held up their hands and waved. The cityfolk rushed close to him, men and women gazing intently, boys mimicking his noble bearing, young children held up by parents so that they could see the king on this day.

The great white horse paused at one end of the square, and King Renly halted, but the cheers did not. "My people!" he cried, "my people!" Their cheers continued. The king lifted a hand, a stopping gesture. Nothing changed. King Renly nodded to the trumpeters, who blew a great note, and at last, slowly, over several minutes, there was silence.

"Thank you," said Renly, beaming at the cityfolk as every eye rested upon him. "My people, you cannot imagine the joy it brings me to be here among you today—"

Applause, once again. Renly had always been a favourite of the commons, Sansa knew, long before King Robert died, but this level of adulation must be new even to him. He nodded once more to the trumpeters.

"—today," Renly continued, "now that the reign of the usurping Lannisters is ended."

The roar that greeted _that_ was even louder, though quite short.

"And today," the king declared, "it is time they must face justice!"

There was more applause. " _Death_!" someone cried, and another, and " _Kill the bitch_!" and " _Kill the Imp_!" and " _Death to lions_!" and " _Death to Lannisters_!" and " _Death to traitors_!" All these sayings and more were mixed in unison from the voices of the cityfolk. There was no love for Lord Tywin's House here today, if there ever had been.

"Some of that House already face the judgement of the holy Father," Renly said. "Ser Lancel Lannister, nephew to Lord Tywin, who died in the battle here. Quite likely Tyrek and Tyrion Lannister, whose fates remain unknown, since the first great people's uprising against the usurpers, and since the battle, respectively. If they are alive, I will be generous in my reward to whosoever discovers their hiding-place."

The king motioned to his guards, and they brought before him the proud form of Ser Kevan Lannister, who had once been master of this city. The crowd gave a bestial howl of hate. Manure, rotten meat and fish and fruit and even stones were thrown at him with vigour. The portly man flinched, though he did not cry out, as he was bombarded. Not a man lifted a finger in his defence.

"Ser Kevan Lannister fought for his lord brother," King Renly continued, "which is a treason more understandable than most. But he had no right to rule this city, nor to cruelly cut down its people merely for demanding the food that is theirs by right. He is headed to the Night's Watch." The king could not further raise his voice without descending to an undignified shout. Instead he slowed it and spoke very deliberately. "He will never unleash swords upon my people again."

More cheers erupted from the people of King's Landing. " _King Renly_!" they roared, and " _Good King Renly_!"

"There is one more infamous treason yet," Renly declared as soon as the crowd had fallen silent. "Our beloved late king's wife, Cersei, born of House Lannister, the Kingslayer's Broodmare, the Whore of the West."

More guards led the former queen to Renly's presence, clad in a fresh grey shift, smelling cleaner and showing no sign of obvious mistreatment. Sansa pitied them then, for the onslaught that fell upon them was almost as savage as that which had fallen on Ser Kevan. Shit and rot and stone rained down upon her, a great deal of it hitting her guards instead. The queen, though, was no less impressive than her uncle in the depth of her composure. Somehow she withstood all this without screaming or crying out, however hideous an experience it must have been for her.

"You are accused of grievous crimes," wheezed the High Septon. He had risen to the office after the previous High Septon, a man too fat to walk, had been torn apart by the starving cityfolk during the riot, but whatever allegiance he had owed to Kevan Lannister was ended; this old man must have come to an arrangement with King Renly. "'Tis said in the _Seven-Pointed Star_ that of all a man's words the Seven Who Are One hear his last most clearly. By mortal judgement you are sentenced to die, but in the judgement of the Father you may yet raise your hopes by honesty. Will you now speak?"

Cersei did not even spare him a glance. Filthy with rot and shit and bleeding from a dozen stones as she was, she managed to retain a certain dignity, every inch a queen, as she looked straight at the true author of her demise. "Little brother. May the gods forgive you the darkness of the deeds you have committed out of lust for power, for your brother's trueborn sons will not."

"It is a grave sin to lie with your last words," the High Septon croaked reproachfully.

"So be it," said Renly. His eyes turned away. "Ser Petyr, bring me her head."

Louder than thunder, the mob screamed its approval. A man stepped forth from among Renly's soldiers, wearing a mask painted with the half-human, half-bestial face of the Stranger, the god of death.

 _Little brother._

Sansa looked from Cersei to Renly and back again. They looked nothing alike. Renly was the very image of a younger, slimmer King Robert Baratheon. And yet… and yet there was a likeness there, a likeness in the soul. And Sansa knew in that terrible instant that King Renly Baratheon, Renly who had been so kind to her, Renly who was fair and just and avenging, would have killed her lord father as surely as Queen Cersei had, with no more hesitation or remorse, had Eddard Stark stood in his way.

There was a time that would have disturbed Sansa. Now, she thought, _It matters nothing._ Renly and his followers were not the true knights that she once had dreamt of in her days as Joffrey's captive, they might be scarcely different from House Lannister and the men of the westerlands—the sack had shown her that—but Cersei and the Lannisters had meant harm to her, whereas King Renly had no cause to lay waste to the north and to House Stark so long as Robb was not fool enough to defy him. His wrath would fall on other folk in other places.

 _None of them are good men_ , she thought. _They are all monsters. What matters is that the monsters who win be the ones on our side._

Sansa smiled to see the fall of the axe, the spurt of blood, Queen Cersei's severed head rolling gruesomely on the floor. It was a young girl's smile, sweet and demure and trusting, playing the part she ought to play. The crowd howled its bloody vengeful pleasure. They liked the look of the king's justice.


	27. Chapter 27

**TYRION**

The world was alive with dancing forms of fire. The deck of _Fury_ glided forth beneath his feet, her passage smooth as silk, and he watched them all burn. _I did this_ , thought Tyrion, _I, not uncle Kevan, not Cersei._ He was unsure whether that should dismay him or please him.

The green flames were a bloody-handed beast with a thousand arms, its body crouching across the river. Wherever it reached, men died. He delighted in their screaming, in the breaking of the vanguard of the foe, until the demon stood, rearing up in front of him, huge and terrible, and grasped out towards the royal fleet with a clawed hand to destroy him…

…and became Cersei, smiling with her flashing feline eyes. "You do us a great service, brother dear," she purred at him. "Joffrey will be so grateful." _For my death_ , Tyrion thought, _and it is yourself that you mean, not Joffrey…_ but did he do her a disservice? Cersei had never tried to kill him. Not outright.

Petyr Baelish had none of his sister's unconcealed joy. He looked innocent as a maiden while he twisted Tyrion's own plan to exile him. "As this idea is yours, my lord Hand, and long has it been said that the Hand speaks with the king's voice, I suppose you will soon be on your way to Dragonstone."

 _The foe speaks._ A hundred gold cloaks rushed to Littlefinger's quarters, but the mockingbird had vanished, borne away by his servants like smoke on the wind. He proffered his dagger, no, _Robert's_ dagger, wrought of Valyrian steel. "It's yours," Lord Baelish said, mocking. Tyrion screamed at him and named him liar, and calm as still water the slight man drew it across his throat…

…and became Cersei, struggling under a lanky brutish southerner without her clothes. Maegor's Holdfast was afire around them. "You could have saved me," she cried at him between grunts. "You could have stopped this. Why didn't you come?"

"I wanted to come!" he told her. "I couldn't come! I had to save your son, I thought you wanted…"

"It never mattered to you what I wanted," Cersei sneered, sounding far too imperious for her current position. She spoke incisively, an impossibly precise mockery of his own voice coming from her lips: " _My sister is nothing to me. Joffrey is my blood, and, what matters, Jaime's son as much as Cersei's._ "

"No," Tyrion called, "it isn't true, it _isn't true_ ," but the flames grew too bright, then they retreated into the corners of the room, to lamps, and he stood not in Maegor's but in one of the great halls of Casterly Rock. It was no longer Cersei being raped, but another, in the same place, by the same man, and Tyrion recalled he was no southerner. He had been the second of them. That was when Tyrion had perceived the horror of it; he had not realised his lord father's intention when it was only the first.

"Stop it!" his boyish self yelled, so young, so weak and so uncertain, struggling against the arms that held him, that remained unyielding and strong. His lord father's speech was curt and well-chosen, selected with care to drive a point home. _He_ flailed for words like a market fishwife accused of her catch having rot. "You can't, you _can't_ , she's my wife, I'm a lion, a Lannister, a lion of the Rock, I'm your son, your _son_ , she's your daughter by the gods, how could you?"

"She is not your wife. She's a _whore_ , fool of a boy." Tysha did not deny it. She was weeping, drawing in breath between moans and hiccups. "Everything she did she did for gold. She cares nothing for you, she never will, she never has. That is how my own lord father came to ruin, brought _our family_ to ruin, to the edge of a cliff that it took much skill and much time and much luck for me to secure it from. I will not have you follow in his footsteps. You think me cruel, 'tis plain to see, but there is purpose here. You will see her now for what she truly is, I command you—" there was a sort of desperation in his lord father's voice that had not been there before, or else he had not noticed; the iron composure faltered— "I am your lord father and I command you; you will see… you must see… Look at her." Tyrion shook his head, refusing to see it. " _Look. At. Her_."

His father bent down to touch him, steel fingers grabbing at his chin to force his over-large head aside. Still Tyrion refused to see it, struggling against Lord Tywin's grip, staring with youth's desperate defiance into his father's green, golden-flecked eyes…

…which became Jaime's, so very alike to them. That was the only way Tyrion recognised him at once for Jaime. He had grown so different since. His hair was long, a shaggy golden mane, and he sat chained in a cell in the midst of his own filth, hopeless and wan and tired.

"You didn't help me," said his brother. "I languish in the dungeons of Riverrun now. When that hateful Stark _bitch_ took you captive, I drew steel against the Hand of the King, I fled my place at Robert's side in the capital, I and our father raised the west in arms, I came with fire and sword, I did all that a man can do to bring you home, all for the love of you. Yet here I am, in the cold and the darkness, and you didn't set me free."

"I tried," said Tyrion, weeping openly, "Jaime, you, you, you must surely understand, I do not have strength of arm as you do. I used trickery, I used what little was in my power to use, I sent my men to break you out, to break you free, I'm told you even got far, got beyond the keep of Riverrun…"

"Not far enough," said Jaime bitterly, quite unlike Jaime. "I should have left you to die in the Eyrie. Then there would be no war and I would not be here, had I not been fooled when I thought in your poisoned dwarfish heart there could be any love for me to match mine for you."

" _No_ , Jaime, no!" Tyrion was beyond embarrassment, beyond humiliation. His brother turned away from him. "I love you more than any other on this earth, I always have, you're the only one of our family who was kind to me. Don't go. Don't go. Don't go…"

But Jaime had already faded into nothingness while he spoke. Now once again he was on a ship, and he faced a red-haired knight, a ruddy burly southerner. Roaring with rage, the man struck with his greatsword and knocked Tyrion off-balance. He missed a return blow with his sword, clanging with armour, and though it came strangely slow, though he raised a hand and wept and prayed for his deliverance, he was utterly helpless to prevent the second blow.

The world dissolved in red and blood and agony. "My lord!" someone was calling him. "My lord Hand! My lord of Lannister! My lord!"

The red turned black. Tyrion could see nothing at all, but that, it may be, was a mercy. He could hear, though, no matter that voices sounded muffled right next to his ear.

"He's awake," said a highborn voice in tones of wonder.

"Uncle!" cried a shrill voice. "Uncle Tyrion, can you hear me? Is that you?"

That could have been the sweetest sound Tyrion had ever heard. _He survived. Jaime's son lives. I did it._

Tyrion tried to open his mouth to reply to his nephew. It was full of blood; he had badly bitten his tongue. Somehow—he knew not—it was also dry as bone. He croaked, "Water," though to anyone outside his head it was almost certainly just a croak.

"Somebody fetch the lord Hand a drink," said the first voice, sounding as if its owner could rather do with one himself.

Somebody did. Tyrion felt it poured into his throat. It was assuredly not water. It was a crummy, scummy ale that would not have been out of place if in the lowest brewhouse in King's Landing. It might have been the nectar of the gods for the eagerness with which Tyrion drank it.

"Gurrh," he managed, feeling somewhat less abysmal.

"Uncle Tyrion," said Joffrey happily. Tyrion thought, _I never thought I'd see the day!_ The boy king prattled on about something or other. King or not, nobody was paying heed to him. A measure of hearing was returning to Tyrion, and distantly he could notice somebody shouting to the rest of the ship. _Probably news of my survival_ , he thought sourly. _Look, the twisted little monkey demon hasn't been called to the Stranger's hall quite yet._

Tyrion beckoned, and somebody poured into his throat another drink. Indeed, too much of it. They stopped when Tyrion spluttered. "Joff." He was beginning to regain feeling in scattered places. He could feel harsh, scratchy wool against parts of his skin. Nonetheless his words must come seldom and slowly. "Where. I?"

"A ship," said Joffrey. "My father's ship. _My_ ship, they say, though they don't do what I tell them, not even my Kingsguard. That is, the _King Robert's Hammer_." Tyrion noticed the boy spoke a lot when he was nervous. "Uncle. What happened to my throne?"

"Renly's," said Tyrion, shortly. "Till… city… re… taken. _If_ … retak… en." He was in no mood for this. A measure of sight was just now returning to him, and there was a little dance of light against his eyes.

"What… I… of course." The boy hesitated and fidgeted incessantly. "Yes, of course I knew that. I…" At last, he burst out, "What happened to mother?"

 _Poor child._ Tyrion could not begrudge even Joffrey something like this, but could not lie to him. "Dead… most like," he said, still slowly. "Renly. He'll be… sure of it."

"But _why_?" The boy looked angry. "I'm king, not her. Mother was just the old king's woman. She… she never did anything to him."

"Threat to… his throne," Tyrion managed. "Renly… requires… you and your brother be bastards. Long as Cersei lived, she could… could cast doubt on… that. He wants… the realm… to think her an adulteress… and they'll ne'er believe it, 'less he treats her as one himself."

Tyrion's sight was coming back further now. The boy's hands were even more of a blur than the rest of him; he must be moving them. "Why… you fidgeting?"

Joffrey said hesitantly, in a tiny voice, "Mother said I should be brave. She said no matter when other boys were rude to me, no matter when father didn't want me near, it doesn't matter, as long as she is there. She will ensure nobody will ever hurt me. Whenever anyone is cruel, forgets my station, I am always to come to mother. I am her little lion and I…" He paused. "Now she… now she won't…"

That was when Tyrion heard the unmistakeable noise of bawling. Joffrey wept his eyes out. Tall white blurs stood elsewhere in the room, all around them, loitering, unsure of what to do.

"There, there," Tyrion said in a moment of wretchedly supreme awkwardness. _What do I, of all men, know of how to comfort a grieving child?_

At last Joffrey recollected his composure. "Mother isn't here any more," he said, and even this circumlocution looked like to start him off again. This time it did not. "Nor father, that awful oaf, he hit mother, I'm glad he's dead… nor uncle Jaime. Nor grandfather, who she always said would keep me safe if she's gone. He's many miles away, and never went to save me in King's Landing. But you're a Lannister, you're my uncle too, but not like Baratheon uncles, mother said, ambitious, they hate me, they envy me, they have claims to crowns of their own. Lannisters can be trusted. Will _you_ keep me safe now?"

 _Oh gods, will you never take pity on me?_

There were many reasons to deny the boy's request. He was cruel. He was a haughty little brat. He did not deserve to be king. Tying House Lannister to the cause of a king like him had been a disservice to House Lannister, one which had already caused a war by the execution of Eddard Stark and which, Tyrion feared, may well bring much woe further. Tyrion had been in King's Landing to help him, to keep him on his throne, yet he had never been anything other than beastly to Tyrion.

He was Jaime's son.

"I will," said Tyrion, not pausing for a moment. It was the only choice. "Because… because you are my blood. Now, how bad is it?"

"What?" said Joffrey. "The war?"

"Oh no, I know exactly the festering creek of shit we've been dropped in in that regard. Me. My wounds. How bad is it? I'm numbed; smudges are all I can see, and there's even less I can feel."

"You mean… you don't know?" The golden blur of his nephew sounded appalled.

"Of course I don't know," Tyrion said impatiently, "I've been unconscious. _Tell me._ How bad is it?"

"I… uncle… your right arm… it's…"

 _An arm wound. That doesn't sound too bad. It could have been the neck or the chest._ Shaking, Tyrion reached out with a faltering fist to press hard upon his right upper arm, and with what little strength remained to him he dragged the hand down.

He stopped feeling the pressure. His left hand must have fallen off before it reached the elbow. Tyrion drew it up again and put it back to his upper arm. Only, this time it did not hit that. It hit something curiously soft.

Then came the horror, and understanding— _the vambrace, that godsdamned ruined vambrace_ —and Tyrion threw off the sheet and for the first time laid eyes upon the bandaged stump where he had once possessed a right forearm.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** The end is nigh. One more chapter, and ACoK is done!


	28. Chapter 28

**CATELYN**

Her brother was sitting in their lord father's solar, clutching a piece of paper in his hands. His mouth was shut, but his expression as Catelyn strode in told the story well enough. _Dark wings, dark words._

She dreaded to ask, but she must. "Whence came the message?"

Edmure's face was stone. "The seat of a small lord in the crownlands, on the southern shore of Blackwater Bay, two days' flight away from here by raven. He's scarce more than a landed knight, in truth, but he _is_ enough of a lord to be granted a ravenry by the Citadel, so father pays him to keep us abreast of events in the capital." Catelyn knew that many Houses of note in the south had such arrangements. He thrust the piece of paper at her. "Here. You may verily listen to it if it doesn't come from my lips."

She opened the letter, noticing that it had a plain, featureless, round wax seal, now broken, and did not mention the sender's name. Her hands trembled as she read.

 _To an interested party,_

 _The tales are still murky but I daresay you want to know this as soon as you can._

 _Four days ago, Lord Renly's rebels attempted to cross the Blackwater. The royal fleet thwarted them. Nobody yet knows why. It is possible that Lord Stannis's widow has been deposed. In the battle the king's men unveiled a monstrous new weapon, wildfire in quantities that no man believed possible, thousands of jars. Nobody yet knows how. With it the royal fleet destroyed the bridge the rebels had built over the Blackwater while a large minority of the rebel host was on the north bank. The royal fleet then harassed that part of the rebel host by flinging wildfire. While this was happening, a small part of the rebel host on the north bank went over to the king's side at the very moment the Lord Regent's charge struck. Nobody yet knows who. By these three hammer-blows the rebel host was panicked and driven to rout._

 _I have never heard before of a battle on this scale that was similarly decisive. Of the host on the north bank, nothing remains as a significant cohesive force. Survivors are scattered in many directions, not in good order._

 _Rebel losses were extremely severe. From what I have heard, I would place them between ten-thousand and twenty-thousand. I regret that I cannot be more specific. What remains of the rebel host, that part which was on the south bank during the Battle of the Blackwater, has left the city in good order. Nobody yet knows whither._

 _When the king's host issued from the city with the Lord Regent at their head, the westermen were similar in number to the gold cloaks. Some gold cloaks were left in the city, but not many. The City Watch numbered about seven and a half thousand when the Queen Regent fell. The Lord Regent's pet small council of highborn westermen has not recruited many more, preferring to concentrate on training the many undisciplined men they already had, but they have recruited some. At the time of the battle there cannot have been fewer than about eight-thousand. It appears that the number of western men-at-arms Lord Leo Lefford brought out of the riverlands to reinforce the capital must have been much greater than I thought at the time. I now think it to be about three-thousand, most or all of the force Lord Lefford raised from his own banners when Lord Lannister called the west to arms at the beginning of the war._

 _I daresay you realise the implications._

It was unsigned.

Catelyn looked up, her face pale. "Mother be merciful," she said, her thoughts a storm-cloud looming. _Has Lord Tywin won the war?_

"The Lannisters are not," Edmure said curtly. "Have you heard that they've sacked Bowerly?"

"I heard it last fortnight," said Catelyn.

"That was Bowerton, sworn to Wayfarer's Rest. Bowerly, sworn to Willow Wood, is two-hundred miles thence, and is thrice the size; they are alike only in name. Lord Tywin's reavers pillaged everything that wasn't nailed down, put dozens of men to the sword, ravished every woman between six and sixty, carried off all the gold in the sept and burnt it down just to be sure. To Willow Wood! Every day Lord Tywin's men are not thwarted, they dare more. Lord Jon Ryger is furious with me, as well he may. He had little enough loyalty to our House before this war; in Robert's Rebellion he fought for Aerys Targaryen. Now he has fought well for us, in the battle beneath the walls of Riverrun, and what has it gained him? A lord who cannot protect his bannermen is no lord at all."

Catelyn heard what was left unspoken as well as what her brother said. _This again? Do I have to remind him?_ "Edmure, we spoke of this nearly a moon past. You cannot. Your king has forbidden it; that is a royal command."

"My king has been played for a fool," Edmure said. "Did you read Lord S—the informer's letter? Lord Lefford took almost as many men from the Lannister host as Kevan Lannister did. Lord Tywin will have to go west and fight Robb according to Robb's desires, you told me. He wants me to march east and fight him, you told me. I must not play into Lord Tywin's hands, you told me. Of course I must not; none of us wish to aid him. But which of us has been playing into his hands? Not I."

Catelyn said, "I have not—"

"If Lord Tywin meant me to march against him and face him in a decisive battle in the field on his terms, he would have kept his strength with him to fight that battle. He has not. You overestimate Lord Tywin's power and underestimate his cunning. He has sent away not a fifth but a _third_ of his army all the way to King's Landing, far enough that they couldn't march back to the Trident in time to aid him if I left Riverrun. If he truly wants a battle in the field, that deed would be rank folly; and no man with even half his wits thinks Tywin Lannister a fool. With that departure and the losses of the Battle of the Banks, Lord Tywin's strength in numbers now is similar to mine, should I call the banners of the riverlords. It must have been for more than two moons by now, and we never took advantage…" Her brother's lip turned up in disgust. "His cruelty to my people was not a show of strength, trying to lure us to face him in battle and inevitably fall. He merely wanted us to think it was. Lord Tywin _knew_ we were too craven to face him, so he gambled that he didn't even need to keep an army stronger than ours in the riverlands to cow us into inaction. He only needed our fear of it, to allow him to inflict a terrible blow on Lord Renly while we did naught to stop him. And the worst part is: he was right."

Their father's solar fell into a long silence.

"Well?" Edmure demanded, at last. "What's the excuse this time, Cat? Why now should I disbelieve my instincts, my bannermen and my eyes?"

"It was a royal command," Catelyn said again. "I do not think you have yet understood that. Disobeying it is treason."

"It is no treason, Cat. I am not aiding any of the king's enemies. Indeed, I am aiding the king. King Robb's host is wholly mounted, whereas mine is partly foot. He will catch up easily with me if he so chooses, before I draw near to the host of Tywin Lannister. Men afoot move slower than men ahorse, so it makes sense that the foot should start early. This will do naught but defend the riverlands and allow Robb to get to grips with the Lannisters more quickly."

"It will do more than that," said Catelyn, wondering, _Sweet brother, can you truly be so blind?_ "Your host of rivermen is more than twice the number of Robb's host in the westerlands. He cannot afford to lose you. You are forcing Robb's hand."

"Yes, I am," said Edmure.

"You admit it?" Catelyn was incredulous.

"Of course I admit it. But if your son were a better king, Cat—not just that, a better _man_ —"

"You _dare_?" She raised her voice in fury. "He saved you from Lannister captivity! He saved your life! He saved this family!" She could not believe the audacity.

Edmure's voice rose above hers. " _Yes, I dare_! If he were a better man, his hand would not need to be forced to defend his people. We do not even ask that he bring his host to the riverlands to march against Lord Tywin, only that he allow us, the men of the riverlands, to do it. If he is willing to stop the monsters raping, pillaging and burning their way across the riverlands, this choice is not treason; it will help him accomplish that more swiftly. And if he is not willing, it is still not treason, for Robb is no true King of the Trident if he cares nothing to defend the lands of the Trident, only to use them. If he wishes to defend the north and not the riverlands, we riverlords will not hinder him from that—we bear no ill-will for the north—but we _will_ defend our people, with or without him, and _damned_ be any king who tells us not to."

He was shouting by the end, and the heated tone of his voice held within it true danger. Catelyn understood, now, how grave the situation was, that her brother was truly contemplating purposeful disobedience.

So she controlled her anger, and she spoke quietly and calmly. "I do not believe you are being fair to your nephew, Edmure." _Put the stress on their relation to each other, not to me._ "He is father's grandson by blood, and he has honoured that; he has defended the riverlands even at the expense of the north. When the ironmen attacked the north, he could easily have made peace with the Lannisters and abandoned the riverlords to a grisly fate, seeking to defend the north and not the riverlands, as you accuse him of. If he were a man of that breed, that would have spared his northern bannermen much woe, including the Battle of the Banks. Yet he didn't. What does that say of him?"

Edmure's voice lowered, and Catelyn was pleased to hear that, if nothing else. Now her brother sounded more tired than angry. "If that is truly why, it is greatly to his credit; but I do not think so. He has fought a war here, yes, but is he fighting that war for the sake of justice or merely honour and vengeance? Is he here to protect the abused folk of the Trident from Lannister horrors—is that his main purpose—or is it to avenge Eddard Stark?"

"Avenging my lord husband _is_ justice," said Catelyn. She tried to remain calm, but it was hard, so hard; she could not think of anything more obvious in the world.

"It is," Edmure agreed, and for a moment she thought he would stop this madness, till he added, "for you. For House Stark. For a man, a woman and their children. But justice for the teeming millions of rivermen and riverwomen, and all of their children, is a matter altogether different. Cat, you must understand, this is not from any mislike I bear for your son. His heart is noble; I respect that. This is not about ourselves; this is about our responsibilities; I do not think his chosen course is right for those I am sworn to protect."

"You say his course is not right," said Catelyn, "but do you think this idea of yours is any better? It is displeasing to hear we were deceived, but the fact that Lord Tywin has fewer men than we thought does not mean he has few enough men to lose against you. It does not mean marching east against him is likely to succeed."

"How couldn't it?" asked Edmure. "If he retreats into a fortress, such as Harrenhal, or goes south, I can besiege him and mayhaps join with Robett Glover's host, the host that once was Lord Bolton's. That host of northmen would be freed from Lannister siege if it is not too late, if there are any great number of them who haven't starved to death already—more failure to lay at the feet of our inaction. Then, in time, all I need do is wait and he is caught like a hare in a snare between our power and that of Lord Renly. Woe to him then! If he goes north, to take by storm the castles Glover's army holds, he will succeed, there is no doubt of that, but he may lose enough men in the effort that I will defeat him. He cannot go east, 'less his whole host fancies a swim in the Narrow Sea. That leaves only west, if he is convinced he must confront me before I can link up with Glover, and then he gives me what I want: a battle on an open field."

There seemed to Catelyn to be a vast blind spot in her brother's plans. "Suppose you get the battle you want. What if you lose it? Edmure, you are a sweet brother and a kind man and I love you for it… but when it comes to commanding battles you're no Tywin Lannister."

 _As every man who fought at the Golden Tooth or Riverrun knows_ , she could have said. She did not need to.

"I may surprise you, Cat," Edmure said, bristling with boyish wounded pride. "But if I don't… even if the worst comes true… if I march and Lord Tywin kills me and destroys my host utterly, that will likely keep him away from King's Landing long enough for Lord Renly to make a second attempt at the capital without him there to interfere, and even if not, destroying a host of near equal size will bleed the Lannister host badly. If my death wins the war, causes Lord Tywin's death and saves the riverlands from his ravaging, I would count that a victory."

Catelyn looked upon him with new eyes. She had never felt less familiar with her brother. Worry suddenly lit her thoughts aflame. _How long has he been thinking this? How long has he been meaning, not to win some glorious battle, but to win the war by throwing away his life?_

"You would cost Riverrun its lord," she said softly.

"Our father is still lord, not I. I think it is what he would have done."

And then the flash of insight came. "Edmure, you do not need to do this to make him proud of you." He flinched as if she had struck him. "He has always been proud of you."

"For being his son," said Edmure, "not for any merit of mine. I'm not blind to what men say of me, Cat. I know they will always remember my failures. I know how they laugh at me. He's proud of _you_. You speak like him. You think like him. You act like him. Responsible, dutiful, thoughtful, cautious, cynical of oaths and honours and loyalties, placing the family above all else… No wonder you're his favourite child; you take after him more than Lysa or I ever did. In this, if nothing else, let me do the right thing, the bold thing. Let me act as Hoster Tully's son."

Her brother's tone was alarming her more and more. "Edmure, he will kill you! Let us not delude ourselves with these twisting turns of phrase… 'if the worst comes true'… you know it will happen as well as I. You are no match for Lord Tywin, I am sorry if it hurts your pride but both of us know it is true. He will go through you as easily as his accursed son did. You will lose the battle and your life, and you're a _fool_ if you think that's what father would want! He would want you to live!"

"He may well," Edmure said. He at least had the sense not to deny it. "Bad though that might be, the worst that could happen if I don't march—Renly dead, the Lannisters triumphant, ready to throw all of the strength of the rest of the realm against the riverlands and north—is a fate by far more terrible. Father had a choice to make, once. He could have doomed the Rebellion by staying true to Aerys, seen the Starks and Arryns and even Robert Baratheon dead at the hands of a mad king. It would have been safer, for a little while. But in time Aerys could have decided that anyone was an enemy, killed anyone on a royal whim. In the moment it may be, but in time, the coward's course is not the safer one."

"But there is a safer course," said Catelyn. "You forget; the Rebellion had only two sides, this war has four. That plays to our advantage."

"And what is it?" Edmure sounded more weary than curious. "Hope and pray Tywin goes to the west? The moon has turned _thrice_ since the Battle of the Banks, and a few days more. He doesn't mean to march west. Every man in the world, the king excepted, knows it."

"He might not," Catelyn conceded, sensing that it would be fruitless to attempt again to move her brother from this belief, "but the advantage of having foes who are also foes to each other is that we need not strike them to see them struck. I see no need to spill more Stark and Tully blood; the gods new and old know our family has suffered enough, more than enough. Let us allow Lord Renly and Lord Tywin to fight to their hearts' content. Whoever emerges victorious will be weakened. If the Lannisters defeat and kill Lord Renly, the Tyrells then become our natural allies, for I doubt the Lannisters would wish to let them remain in power after this. Thus we gain friends and lose nothing. If Lord Renly wins, the Lannisters are gone and we may yet negotiate an honourable peace, or if we fight him we are in a much better position for it. Why should we step in when our foes will bleed each other white if we do nothing?"

"That might perhaps put us in good stead for the war," said Edmure, "but what of the reaving of the riverlands? What of Bowerly and the countless other towns and villages and farms and lands that have been sacked and despoiled and burnt, so many I cannot even begin to recall most of their names?"

"Should they have victory, do you think the Lannisters will be kind masters?"

"Of course not!"

"Then we wait. That is war, you see; that is its nature. That is what it has always been. The best thing you can do for them is to end it in our favour, quickly."

But just when she thought he might be listening, Edmure had gone back to his old stubbornness. He shook his head mulishly. "That is not enough."

"What do you mean, it is not enough?"

"It is not enough to see the war ended in our favour," Edmure Tully said, his jaw set. "That may suffice for our family, but not for many other families in the lands watered by the river Trident. You say, we let them be sacked and burnt and raped and pillaged. I say, no. I stop it. I march out with all the strength at my disposal to put an end to it, because that is what I am honour-bound to do.

"You wish to do good for our family, I understand, and you are dutiful in that; but I am heir to Riverrun, regent for father, and that means I have other duties than family. I must care also for the other folk who find themselves imperilled by the clash of kings. There are many men and women who are not _of_ our House but are nevertheless under us, sworn to us, and they too deserve our thoughts and our efforts to protect them. We know them, you see, even if we don't always see it. They are the servants who clean and maintain our castles. They are the farmers that give us our food. They are the men who fight for us bravely when we call them to war, risking their lives, trusting us with their lives. If we care not for those lives when we make our choices, the choices we make and they cannot make… I can't let their trust be misplaced. They are _good people_ , and they deserve more than a lord who cares nothing for them, more than a Tywin Lannister. They deserve a lord who understands that they are his people and just as a king to a vassal, as a father to a son, he has a duty to protect them, come blood, come battle, come the Others from the seven hells."

And so his mind was made.

Catelyn was awake at dawn the following day, looking down from the walls of Riverrun. The castle was alive with excited chatter, from the soldiers to the scullery maids. From what Catelyn could overhear, it seemed that all but herself were glad that the Lannisters were about to be taught a lesson and that Tully inaction had ended at last.

Rarely had she seen such a sight as this. Men-at-arms filled the castle's courtyard; there seemed to be no end to them. Many were the men of Riverrun, and soon there would be more, for ravens and riders had been sent all over the lands of the Trident and more would come and join Ser Edmure as he came. Bright were their leaping trout standards and bright were their helmets and mail, shining as they caught the ruddy light peeking out from the early morning sun.

Bright was their mood, and proudly did they carry themselves, from the meanest man dragging a wagon of food to highborn knights with their destriers and their bold young liege. Today they marched to avenge and help their people. Today they marched with a purpose. Perhaps more than anything, today the long wait ended, hearing of horror and not opposing it; today they _marched_.

The portcullis rose. The drawbridge fell. Cheered by its people, the great host of the Trident issued forth from Riverrun, to uncertain fate. They streamed from the castle like a ribbon, knights and squires all, lords and smallfolk all, the great captains of horse and the lowly men taking care of the packhorses. All were applauded. In the warm glow of this acclamation, all of them were heroes from the songs.

The army flowed from Riverrun like water, clear and shining, its movement smooth. Long past when others had left and were seeing to their duties, Catelyn remained on the walls. None dared disturb her. She gazed after the great host of her people, tall and bold and proud, and she watched them fade away and disappear into the bloody sunrise.

* * *

 **FINIS**

* * *

 **Final Author's Note:** Well, that's that then.

If/when I put up _A Storm of Swords: Knees Falling_ (I currently think I am likely to, but I might not, so it would be dishonest of me to promise it) I'll put up another 'chapter' on here, to let any readers who may have been interested in _A Clash of Kings: Knees Falling_ know that they can follow the characters' stories further, if they wish to. Until then… fare well!


	29. A Storm of Swords: Knees Falling

_Renly, youngest brother of King Robert Baratheon, has usurped_  
 _the Iron Throne. Robert's heir, a child in exile, is guarded by_  
 _his maimed uncle Tyrion, but their enemies are many and their_  
 _friends are few. While Arya Stark is trapped in Harrenhal, her_  
 _brother Robb's kingdom is being invaded by two foes at once,_  
 _and above them looms the power of King Renly, who holds_  
 _their sister hostage and demands death or service. Meanwhile,_  
 _in the wilderness, Jon Snow must conceal his true allegiance_  
 _amidst a horde of hungry, savage people, intent on crossing the_  
 _Wall and taking the Kingdom of the North for their own._

 **A STORM OF SWORDS: KNEES FALLING**

has begun.

To find it, click 'Perfidious Albion' in the story summary and you'll see it easily on my profile.


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